Most American adults, including college students, support the Trump administration’s cancellation of federal funding to universities which fail to address the campus antisemitism crisis, a new poll commissioned by the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) and conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research has found.

A striking 66 percent of US adults expressed “total support” for cutting federal grants and contracts to higher education institutions that “do not do enough to protect Jewish students or address antisemitism.” Only 34 percent said they “oppose it.”

A strong, but less overwhelming, majority of college students, 56 percent, said they approve of the cuts, compared to 44 percent who oppose them.

Meanwhile, a majority of US adults, 54 percent, indicated support for the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who led raucous anti-Israel campus protests and, according to the federal government, expressed support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Only 25 percent said they oppose his deportation.

College students are more conflicted about the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Khalil, who was an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover during the 2023-2024 academic year and organizer of several demonstrations which caused lockdowns at Barnard College this academic year. Forty percent of those surveyed, a plurality, approve of removing him from the US while 37 percent disapprove.

“The American public has sent a clear message: universities must be held accountable for failing to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment,” ICC chief executive officer Jacob Baime said in a statement. “Amid a rising crisis of antisemitism, too many academic institutions have neglected their duty.”

He continued, “With 66 percent of US adults and 56 percent of college students supporting the withdrawal of federal funding from schools that tolerate such failures, these findings signal that administrators must act decisively to ensure a safe, inclusive environment for Jewish students.”

The survey was conducted over three days in March, with 1,000 US adults and 450 college students participating.

The survey results come amid US President Donald Trump’s following through on his threat to inflict severe financial injuries on colleges and universities it deems soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.”

In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money.

Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber, to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”

Additionally, 60 universities are being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.

Trump’s deportation policy has, as indicated by the ICC’s survey results, proved to more controversial and, unlike his cancelling of taxpayer funds, difficult to implement. Khalil’s deportation is being delayed by the courts, and several other foreign anti-Israel activists selected for deportation have retained counsel who are so far staving off US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) efforts to repatriate them to their countries of origin.

Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in March that the administration’s actions are legal and safeguard US interests.

“The Trump administration’s new policy of deporting pro-Hamas demonstrators who are not citizens is an important step toward addressing problems related to Hamas in America,” he explained in a statement. “The Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly gives the Secretary of State the authority to deport aliens on a variety of grounds, including endangering public safety and national security.”

Joffe added that the expatriates selected for deportation violated the conditions of their residency in the US by “giving material support to a designated terrorist group (be it Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis)” and “organizing demonstrations, which have included violence and the destruction of property.” In arguing his position, he pointed to the case of Brown University physician Rasha Alawieh, whom the federal government deported to Lebanon after learning that she had attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, who was the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

“Overall, however, due to the Trump administration’s haphazard messaging, the evidence showing the threats to public safety and national security has been overshadowed by allegations that the deportation policy is an effort to quash free speech and chill public discourse. The terrorist connections and revolutionary motivations of groups such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Within Our Lifetime have similarly been ignored by most media. So, too, has the role of their various funders and amplifiers, including left-wing American foundations [and] the Chinese Communist Party” Joffe continued. “The administration’s communications skills need to improve significantly on these issues to provide more detailed information on bad actors, their motivations and backers, and not simply superficialities that stir outrage.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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