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As Trump Takes Office, Will the New Administration Help Stop Radicalism on College Campuses?

Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect

The new Trump administration promises to shift the landscape for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and anti-Israel politics.

A new Executive Order orders action to combat antisemitism, including deporting violent and terror-supporting non-citizens, and the administration’s efforts to remove the Federal DEI enterprise removes a key support for anti-Israel and antisemitic policies at universities receiving government funds.

The effectiveness of these and other measures remains unclear — but the new and supportive rhetoric must be contrasted with the new administration’s established pattern of pressuring Israel to make concessions.

Responding to increasing scrutiny, higher education professionals have rebranded DEI courses and offices, and more evidence has accumulated that university administrations are working to dilute or replace the focus on campus antisemitism. At Northwestern University, critics have noted that a required training program on discrimination and harassment omitted Israel and Zionism as targeted categories, but included “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases.” The University of Toronto also launched a working group on Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian discrimination.

Universities and localities continue, however, to act against students who have violated regulations and laws:

Divestment now appears nearly dead on American campuses. In January Johns Hopkins University rejected divesting from Israel as inappropriately political and impractical, as did the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Maine system. At the University of Georgia, however, students disrupted a board of regents meeting to demand divestment.

This follows a spate of protests by medical professionals, including a letter of support from the American Academy of Pediatrics to then Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in support of Hamas doctor Hussam Abu Safiya who was arrested in Gaza. “Call out sick for Gaza” protests occurred at Boston area hospitals including Harvard Medical School.

Physicians associated with Columbia University also complained administrators had engaged in “the erasure of Palestinian morbidity and mortality and “systematic repression and censorship of health-oriented discussions of the genocide.” The support for Hamas demonstrated by physicians at their medical school graduations is an ominous foreshadowing of future mistreatment of patients on the basis of religion or national identity that has already been documented in the US, Canada, and Europe.

Faculty

In the faculty sphere, one of the most notable developments in January was a resolution approved by the American Historical Association (AHA) members at its annual meeting to condemn “scholasticide” in Gaza. The resolution alleged that Israel had intentionally and systematically destroyed Gaza’s educational infrastructure using US weapons. Once approved the resolution moved to the executive committee before being sent to the full membership. The executive committee, however, vetoed the resolution, stating that “it lies outside the scope of the association’s mission and purpose.”

The AHA’s executive committee’s decision follows a similar one by the Modern Language Association to prevent a BDS resolution from being put to the full membership. The moves suggest that academic leaders — with the notable exception of the umbrella American Association of University Professors, which has endorsed “individual” Israel boycotts and whose leadership is strongly hostile to Israel — are perceiving BDS as a losing issue from the perspective of disciplinary reputation and perhaps legal and public relations liability. There is a schism between younger academics inculcated with the ideology of “scholar-activism” and an older generation.

Despite or perhaps as a result of small signs of resistance to BDS by leaders of academic organizations, faculty unions have emerged as centers of Israel hatred.

Resolutions demanding divestment area are also means to split the faculty and more importantly, leverage affiliated union support. In one example the City University of New York Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) union voted to divest from Israel. A Jewish faculty group then filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

The union vote was condemned by the university and New York State governor Kathy Hochul (D). The refusal of the Supreme Court to hear an earlier case regarding the union leaves in limbo the question of whether Jewish and other faculty can be fairly represented by a politicized union.

In an example of the mendacity and mediocrity that characterizes so many anti-Israel faculty members, Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke claimed that she had been forced to retire as a result of her “pro-Palestinian” activities. Her claim that the move was “termination dressed up in more palatable terms” was belied by report from an outside law firm which documented her persistent harassment and defamation of Israeli and Jewish students and “prohibited racial stereotyping.”

Franke has now filed a grievance against the school’s Office of Institutional Equity accusing it of “a pattern and anti-Palestinian racism.”

In a related development, the Islamist group CAIR declared that Columbia was a hostile campus for pro-Palestinian students.

Reports continue to accumulate regarding the routine incorporation of anti-Israel materials into coursework in disciplines as varied as English and music. At the University of Pittsburgh, faculty also offered extra credit for attending anti-Israel protests and berated students for their support of Israel and “Jewish privilege.” A video taken at the Barnard College English department shows that every faculty member’s door is decorated with anti-Israel flyers.

Other examples of campus propagandizing include a panel entitled “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine” to be held at the University of California Berkeley in February. A description of the panel promises to “look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault.” After the event was publicized, the university removed the description from its website.

Students

With the semester underway campus protests against Israel have resumed but at lower level:

Pushback to university disciplinary efforts is also continuing. At the University of Chicago, a lawsuit has been filed by Palestine Legal, the lawfare arm of the BDS movement, on behalf of a student who had been disciplined and removed from student housing.

But in a sign that the anti-Israel movement and “Palestine” as an organizing principle continue to alienate fellow students, the black feminist group at George Washington University “Black Defiance” announced it had left the Student Coalition for Palestine “after repeatedly experiencing anti-Blackness and racism.”

Finally, in the new semester student governments quickly regained their place as centers for anti-Israel activity:

  1. Several student governments at the University of California at San Diego have divested their holdings from Israeli companies;
  2. The Concordia University Student Union passed a BDS resolution. Only 858 students out of 49,898 enrolled voted;
  3. The Rutgers University student government rejected use of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
  4. The student government at the University of Toronto held a fundraiser for Gaza during a meeting.

K-12

Evidence continues to accumulate regarding deep and pervasive bias against Israel and Jews at all levels of K-12 education. Efforts to coverup and downplay incidents also continue locally.

In a settlement reached with the Howard County Public Schools (MD), the US Department of Education noted that authorities had failed to report incidents where Jewish students were abused, including “posting of swastikas; mimicking Nazi salutes; threats to kill and stating preference for death of Jewish people; using the term “Jew” as a slur; calling a Jewish middle school student a “dirty Jew,” telling her to “go back to the gas chamber.”

Teachers and their unions continue to push “liberated ethnic studies” and “anti-Palestinian racism” in curriculums.

Arts/Culture

Social media and web platforms continue to be key battlegrounds regarding Israel and antisemitism. Wikipedia’s highest adjudicating body, the Arbitration Committee, has barred a number of editors who had systematically distorted the platform’s coverage of Israel, Palestine, and related topics.

The move came after months of revelations regarding the manner in which the group had conspired via back channel communications to edit pieces in order to blame Israel for the current conflict and accuse it among others things of “settler-colonialism” and “genocide.” Six pro-Hamas editors were barred in addition to two pro-Israel editors. A recent report also uncovered a group of pro-Hamas editors conspiring to manipulate French Wikipedia.

The move against pro-Hamas editors came after the Heritage Foundation announced a project to identify anonymous Wikipedia editors responsible for anti-Israel bias.

The author is a contributor to SPME, where a significantly different version of this article first appeared.

The post As Trump Takes Office, Will the New Administration Help Stop Radicalism on College Campuses? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”

He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.

Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.

But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.

He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”

He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.

He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.

He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.

He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”

Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.

“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.

SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY

Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.

Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.

Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.

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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.

A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.

Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.

On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.

WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”

“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.

“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.

JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel

Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.

The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.

While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.

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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot

Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.

“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”

Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.

“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.

Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.

She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.

The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”

Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”

The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.

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