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Dept. of Education to investigate antisemitism on at least 4 more campuses including Rutgers and Tulane
(JTA) – The U.S. Department of Education has opened 12 new investigations into the handling of discrimination at colleges and school districts since Thanksgiving, in the latest expansion of the department’s scrutiny of civil rights issues since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
At least four — and almost certainly more — of the new investigations are related to antisemitism, which the department vowed in October to combat on college campuses using all of its available tools.
Rutgers University, Tulane University, Santa Monica College and Union College are all facing allegations that they failed to respond adequately to antisemitism, spokespeople for each of the schools confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency or other outlets.
A K-12 school district in Georgia said its investigation was not related to antisemitism, while two other schools declined to say what their investigations concerned. Several major institutions including Stanford University and the University of California-Los Angeles did not respond to requests for comment.
The department’s civil rights office has made a point of focusing on antisemitism- and Islamophobia-related complaints that allege violations of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on several categories including “shared ancestry.” More than two dozen such cases have been opened since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, amid political pressure in the face of rising concerns about campus antisemitism.
Many such Title VI cases involving allegations of discrimination toward Jews are brought by pro-Israel advocacy groups, including the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Lawfare Project, which often seek to define anti-Zionist speech in university spaces as antisemitic.
The department has previously initiated investigations at schools including Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania — whose president Liz Magill recently resigned from her post following blowback from her handling of a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. Opening an investigation does not mean that the department believes a complaint has merit.
The agency does not disclose specifics about the investigations it initiates, leaving the schools and advocacy groups that may be involved in the cases to fill in the details. But even the schools themselves say they are not always immediately aware of why they are being investigated. An education department spokesperson pointed to a November press release about antisemitism- and Islamophobia-related investigations as “context” for the latest round.
A spokesperson for Rutgers University in New Jersey, which had an investigation opened into it on Monday, told JTA it was over “alleged incidents of harassment in October and November 2023 of students on the basis of their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israel).” The spokesperson said the school was given no further details.
A hedge outside Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 30, 2016. (Tomwsulcer via Creative Commons)
Rutgers this week announced it was suspending its campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine following allegations of disruptive protests. The school also briefly suspended its law school’s Student Bar Association last month after it tried to impeach a Jewish member over a message-board battle about Israel and Hamas.
A spokesperson for Tulane University in New Orleans, which had an investigation opened Dec. 5, also told JTA that its inquiry was tied to antisemitism concerns — specifically over an Oct. 26 pro-Palestinian rally held near the university at which four individuals not affiliated with Tulane were arrested and several people, including Jewish students, were injured.
“Antisemitism and other forms of hate have no place at Tulane University,” spokesperson Michael Strecker said in a statement. “The incident at the center of this investigation took place at a rally organized by a group that is not recognized by Tulane. The rally was deliberately staged on public property contiguous to our campus but over which we have no control.”
Strecker added that the university increased security on campus and increased its own antisemitism training, among other measures, following the incident, and that it would “fully comply” with the investigation. A lawyer for one of the Jewish students assaulted at the rally told Tulane’s student newspaper they “had no idea” about the investigation.
A trustee for Santa Monica College told a local newspaper that its own investigation, opened Dec. 4, was also related to antisemitism, as a student club council had briefly denied recognition to a local chapter of Students Supporting Israel in late October. University administrators reversed the decision the next day, saying there was “no lawful basis” to deny the club; in a statement, the college told the Santa Monica Daily Press, “This prompt action demonstrates the college’s commitment to a discrimination-free environment for all students.”
And a statement from Union College in Schenectady, New York, reveals that its own investigation opened Dec. 5 also involves allegations of “a claim of discrimination toward Jewish students.”
“Specifically, the unnamed complainant alleges that Union College failed to respond appropriately to incidents of harassment in October and November 2023,” the statement reads. It goes on to say that the school “stands against hate in all forms, including antisemitism,” and “has seen no violence, or threats of violence, on campus since the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas on Israel.”
Cherry blossoms on the University of Washington Quad in Seattle, March 14, 2010. (Brewbooks via Creative Commons)
Representatives at two other universities, the University of Washington-Seattle and the University of California-San Diego, told JTA they would cooperate with their investigations but did not say whether the inquiries involved antisemitism. Cobb County School District in Georgia told a local reporter that the investigation opened into it on Dec. 5 was not related to antisemitism.
Requests for comment to the other colleges that have also had recent discrimination investigations opened were not returned. The other schools are UCLA; Stanford; Whitman College; Montana State University; and the University of Cincinnati.
Recent news reports from some of these colleges indicate that they, too, have been the sites of conflict involving Jewish concerns. A conservative radio station has reported that staff at a University of Washington diversity and inclusion office emailed students Oct. 25 to call Israel “oppressors and colonizers, while Palestine stands as the oppressed and colonized.” The letter also accused Israel of “genocide” and said, “We firmly support the cause of Palestinians and their fight for freedom from the unlawful and oppressive settler colonial apartheid state.” The letter was reportedly unsanctioned by the school and staffers who sent it were disciplined.
A video shared on social media from UCSD in November claimed that the university had evacuated a building in which Jewish students were discussing antisemitic threats against them; the university denied the allegations. The video showed pro-Palestinian protesters gathering outside an area where Jewish students were congregating.
At UCLA, administrators last month condemned antisemitic language spoken by students at a pro-Palestinian protest at which students bashed a piñata with an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while yelling through a microphone, “Beat that f–king Jew.”
And at the University of Cincinnati, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was admonished shortly before Halloween for a social media post that promoted a “Spooky Zionist” meeting theme, according to local reports.
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‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks
University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect.
The chancellor of University of California, Berkeley described a professor who cheered the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre across southern Israel a “fine scholar” during a congressional hearing held at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Richard K. Lyons, who assumed the chancellorship in July 2024 issued the unmitigated praise while being questioned by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, which summoned him and the chief administrators of two other major universities to interrogate their handling of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Lyons stumbled into the statement while being questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), who asked Lyons to describe the extent of his relationship and correspondence with Professor Ussama Makdisi, who tweeted in Feb. 2024 that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7.”
“What do you think the professor meant,” McClain asked Lyons, to which the chancellor responded, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on October 7.” McClain proceeded to ask if Lyons discussed the tweet with Makdisi or personally reprimanded him, prompting an exchange of remarks which concluded with Lyons’s saying, “He is a fine scholar.”
Lyon’s comment came after nearly three hours in which the group of university leaders — which included Dr. Robert Groves, president of Georgetown University, and Dr. Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) — offered gaffe-free, deliberately worded answers to the members’ questions to avoid eliciting the kind of public relations ordeal which prematurely ended the tenures of two Ivy League presidents in 2024 following an education committee held in Dec. 2023.
Rep. McClain later criticized Lyons on social media, calling his comment “totally disgraceful.” She added, “Faculty must be held accountable and Jewish students deserve better.”
CUNY chancellor Rodriguez also triggered a rebuke from the committee members in which he was also described as a “disgrace.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUNY campuses have been lambasted by critics as some of the most antisemitic institutions of higher education in the United States. Last year, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved half a dozen investigations of antisemitism on CUNY campuses, one of which involved Jewish students who were pressured into saying that Jews are White people who should be excluded from discussions about social justice.
During Tuesday’s hearing Rodriguez acknowledged that antisemitic incidents continue to disrupt Jewish academic life, disclosing that 84 complaints of antisemitism have been formally reported to CUNY administrators since 2024. 15 were filed in 2025 alone, but CUNY, he said, has published only 18 students for antisemitic conduct. Rodriguez went on to denounce efforts to pressure CUNY into adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, saying, “I have repudiated BDS and I have said there’s no place for BDS at the City University of New York.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) remarked, however, that Rodriguez has allegedly done little to address antisemitism in the CUNY faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which has passed several resolutions endorsing BDS and whose members, according to 2021 ruling rendered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), discriminated against Professor Jeffrey Lax by holding meetings on Shabbat to prevent him and other Jews from attending them.
“The PSC does not speak for the City University of New York,” Rodriquez protested. “We’ve been clear on our commitment against antisemitism and against BDS.”
Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose grilling of higher education officials who appear before the committee has created several viral moments, rejected Rodriguez’s responses as disingenuous.
“It’s all words, no action. You have failed the people of New York,” she told the chancellor. “You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”
Following the hearing, The Lawfare Project, legal nonprofit which provides legal services free of charge to Jewish victims of civil rights violations, applauded the education committee for publicizing antisemitism at CUNY.
“I am thankful for the many members of Congress who worked with us to ensure that the deeply disturbing facts about antisemitism at CUNY were brought forward in this hearing,” Lawfare Project litigation director Zipora Reich said in a press release. “While it is deeply frustrating to hear more platitudes and vague promises from CUNY’s leadership, we are encouraged to see federal lawmakers demanding accountability.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Huckabee Calls for Israeli Investigation Into ‘Criminal and Terrorist’ Killing of Palestinian-American in West Bank
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee on Monday urged Israeli officials to swiftly investigate the killing of Saif Musallet, a 20-year-old American citizen who was allegedly beaten to death by Israeli settlers while he was visiting family in the West Bank town of Sinjil.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Huckabee wrote on social media, in what is one of his strongest condemnations of Israeli settler violence since he was appointed by President Donald Trump in November 2024. “Saif was just 20 yrs old.”
Musallet, a Florida native, was reportedly attacked on July 11 by a group of Israelis while accompanying relatives on family-owned farmland near Ramallah. His family says he was severely beaten and denied medical attention for nearly three hours before succumbing to his injuries. Another Palestinian man, 23-year-old Mohammad al-Shalabi, was shot and killed during the same incident, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Israeli authorities said the violence followed an alleged rock-throwing incident that left two Israelis lightly wounded, a common occurrence in the West Bank which las left scores of Israelis civilians wounded and some killed. The Israel Defense Forces stated they used non-lethal crowd dispersal methods during the clash. The IDF says the incident is under investigation. Two Israeli minors were arrested following the attack, though according to Israeli media reports, neither of them is a murder suspect, and they were subsequently released to house arrest.
Musallet had traveled to the West Bank in early June to visit relatives and potentially meet a bride. Raised in Port Charlotte, Florida, he had recently co-founded an ice cream business in Tampa with his family. His death comes amid an escalation in settler-related violence across the West Bank, which has intensified since the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and the Israeli military’s ongoing campaign in Gaza.
Huckabee has historically defended Israeli settlement activity and has vowed to serve as an unwavering defender of the Jewish state.
Human rights groups and local activists say Musallet’s killing is part of a growing pattern of impunity for attacks on Palestinians, including American citizens. No Israeli suspects have been indicted in several high-profile deaths of Palestinian Americans in recent years, including journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and teenager Omar Mohammad Rabea.
U.S. lawmakers, including Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), who represents Tampa, joined calls for an investigation. The State Department said it is aware of the incident and is providing consular support to the family but deferred further comment to Israeli authorities.
Musallet’s funeral was held Sunday in his family’s hometown of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya. His relatives say they are demanding justice not only for Saif, but for all Americans caught in what they describe as an increasingly lawless situation in the occupied West Bank.
The post Huckabee Calls for Israeli Investigation Into ‘Criminal and Terrorist’ Killing of Palestinian-American in West Bank first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Scandal-Plagued UN Commission Disbands Amid Increasing US Pressure Against Anti-Israel International Organizations
Miloon Kothari, member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, briefs reporters on the first report of the Commission. UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
The Commission of Inquiry (COI), a controversial United Nations commission investigating Israel for nearly five years, has collapsed after all three of its members abruptly resigned days after the United States sanctioned a senior UN official over antisemitism.
Commission chair Navi Pillay resigned on July 8, citing health concerns and scheduling conflicts. Her fellow commissioners, Chris Sidoti and Miloon Kothari, followed suit days later. While none of the commissioners directly linked their resignations to the U.S. sanctions, the timing suggests mounting American pressure played a decisive role.
The resignations came just one day before the Trump administration announced sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Albanese was sanctioned over what the State Department called a “pattern of antisemitic and inflammatory rhetoric.” She had previously claimed that the U.S. was controlled by a “Jewish lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to self-defense. The sanctions bar her from entering the U.S. and freeze any assets under American jurisdiction.
The resignations mark a major victory for critics who have long viewed the inquiry as biased and politically motivated.
Watchdog groups, including Geneva-based UN Watch, celebrated the swift collapse of the Commission of Inquiry (COI), which they say had long operated with an open mandate to target Israel. “This is a watershed moment of accountability,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “The COI was built on bias and sustained by hatred. Its fall is a victory for human rights, not a defeat.”
The COI had faced heavy criticism since its formation in 2021. In July 2022, Commissioner Miloon Kothari, made comments about the undue influence of a so-called “Jewish lobby” on the media, said the COI would “have to look at issues of settler colonialism.”
“Apartheid itself is a very useful paradigm, so we have a slightly different approach, but we will definitely get to it,” he added.
The Commission was established in 2021 year following the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas group in May. COI is the first UN commission to ever be granted an indefinite period of investigation, which has drawn criticism from the US State Department, members of US Congress, and Jewish leaders across the world.
Following the resignations, Council President Jürg Lauber invited member states to nominate replacements by August 31. However, it is unclear whether the commission will be reconstituted or quietly shelved. UN Watch and other groups have urged the council to disband the COI entirely, calling it irreparably biased.
The post Scandal-Plagued UN Commission Disbands Amid Increasing US Pressure Against Anti-Israel International Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.