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Education secretary: Colleges could face funding cuts if they don’t address antisemitism
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said colleges could lose federal funding if they fail to address antisemitism and other bigotries, following up on a meeting last month with Jewish leaders alarmed by rising antisemitism on campuses in the wake of the Israel Hamas war.
Cardona made his warning in an interview on CNN on Monday ahead of the release the next day of a letter reminding federally funded schools of their obligation to protect Jews and other minorities.
“I would want to provide support for these universities, provide guidance. And if there are egregious acts, I want to make sure that we’re investigating,” he told the network. “Ultimately, if we have to withhold dollars from a campus refusing to comply, we would.”
Cardona’s comments do not represent a new policy, but they suggest that Cardona is prepared to be aggressive in pressing colleges to act. In a release on Tuesday formally announcing the letter, Cardona tied the letter’s instructions to what Jewish organizations have said is a massive spike in antisemitism on campuses since Hamas terrorists struck Israel on Oct. 7, launching the war.
“The rise of reports of hate incidents on our college campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict is deeply traumatic for students and should be alarming to all Americans. antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all other forms of hatred go against everything we stand for as a nation,” he said.
The letter sent Tuesday to colleges that receive federal funds, signed by Catherine Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, describes in its first paragraph “an alarming rise in disturbing antisemitic incidents and threats to Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students on college campuses and in P-12 schools.”
In her second paragraph, Lhamon ties the money the schools get from the government to their legal obligations to protect minority students. Both public and private universities receive federal funds through a variety of pathways.
“I write to remind colleges, universities, and schools that receive federal financial assistance of their legal responsibility under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its implementing regulations (Title VI) to provide all students a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” Lhamon said in her letter. “It is your legal obligation under Title VI to address prohibited discrimination against students and others on your campus—including those who are or are perceived to be Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian — in the ways described in this letter.”
In his Oct. 30 meeting with Jewish leaders, Cardona noted that the Biden Administration had already, prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas deadly attack on Israel, extended Civil Rights Act protections to religious minorities, including Jews and Muslims. He promised a two-week deadline to come up with a plan.
Jewish leaders at that meeting noted that the federal government in recent years has expanded Title IX of the same act, which bans gender discrimination, to allow for funding to be withheld from universities that do not address sexual harassment and assault. They suggested that the department could apply similar measures to Title VI as an incentive for compliance.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Jewish Democrat from Nevada, last week had sent a letter urging the Education Department to issue “updated guidance to college and university administrators making clear the consequences of failing to ensure the safety of Jewish students,” among other measures.
Rosen, who cofounded an antisemitism task force in the Senate, welcomed Cardona’s letter issued Tuesday. “I’m glad to see the U.S. Department of Education is taking action at my urging to remind school administrators of their legal responsibility to keep students safe from antisemitism and other forms of discrimination – or face consequences,” she said. “I’m continuing to urge the department to form a task force to counter campus antisemitism.”
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The post Education secretary: Colleges could face funding cuts if they don’t address antisemitism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says
An Israeli flag flies in Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as seen from Metula, northern Israel, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a “gesture to the Lebanese president.”
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had agreed with Lebanon, the US, and France to establish working groups to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal agreed in November, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area with airstrikes in southern Lebanon citing what it described as Hezbollah activity.
The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel‘s military and the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign in southern Lebanon that left Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.
The post Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The United Nations Security Council will meet behind closed doors on Wednesday over Iran’s expansion of its stock of uranium close to weapons grade, diplomats said on Monday.
The meeting was requested by six of the council’s 15 members – France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain, and the US.
They also want the council to discuss Iran’s obligation to provide the UN nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – with “the information necessary to clarify outstanding issues related to undeclared nuclear material detected at multiple locations in Iran,” diplomats said.
Iran’s mission to the UN in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned meeting.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran reached a deal in 2015 with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia, and China – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Washington quit the agreement in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as US president, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments.
Britain, France, and Germany have told the UN Security Council that they are ready – if needed – to trigger a so-called snap back of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 this year when the 2015 UN resolution on the deal expires. US President Donald Trump has directed his UN envoy to work with allies to snap back international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.
The post UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says
A man inspects a damaged car in Latakia, after hundreds were reportedly killed in some of the deadliest violence in 13 years of civil war, pitting loyalists of deposed President Bashar al-Assad against the country’s new Islamist rulers, Syria, March 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Haidar Mustafa
Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria’s coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by the army against an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
Pressure has been growing on Syria’s Islamist-led government to investigate after reports by a war monitor of the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where the majority of the population were members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families – including women, children, and individuals hors de combat – were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular,” UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, using a French term for those incapable of fighting.
So far, the UN human rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, Al-Kheetan told a Geneva press briefing. Of those, 90 were men; 18 were women; and three were children, he added.
“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis,” Al-Kheetan told reporters. In some cases, men were shot dead in front of their families, he said, citing testimonies from survivors.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk welcomed an announcement by Syria’s Islamist-led government to create an accountability committee and called for those investigations to be prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial, the spokesperson added.
The post Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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