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Northwestern U is facing a new federal antisemitism investigation — and criticism of its new antisemitism task force
(JTA) – On the same day the president of Northwestern University announced the new members of a task force formed to combat antisemitism on campus, the school became a target of a federal investigation into its handling of antisemitism.
The confluence on Tuesday would seem to be good timing for the private Big Ten school in Evanston, Illinois, as it tries to restore its Jewish community’s faith in the institution. Except the committee itself has already come under fire in some circles before it has even begun its work.
Some Jewish critics of higher education — including the conservative activist who filed the Title VI complaint that triggered Northwestern’s U.S. Department of Education investigation — have attacked the committee and its members in a pattern reminiscent of recent controversies at Stanford and Harvard. The critics have taken aim at the committee’s stated desire to combat Islamophobia as well as antisemitism, and at some members’ views on Israel and critical race theory.
“Northwestern President’s ‘Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate’ launches with clear intent to block any recognition of antisemitism at the university,” posted Richard Goldberg, a Jewish former intelligence officer and Northwestern alum who worked in the Trump White House and, before that, for a Republican governor of Illinois. “The co-chair and membership make that clear. This is absurd.”
Goldberg cited committee co-chair Bryan Brayboy’s past work advocating for a “Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education” for Indigenous people. Goldberg also objected to another member’s work in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel; that member, Jessica Winegar, was a key voice pushing the American Anthropological Association’s vote last summer to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
Other committee members include the director of the campus Hillel, student representatives and members of the board of trustees; there are no rabbis on the committee.
Undeterred by the criticism, the committee’s co-chairs have said they aren’t going anywhere, and a spokesperson for Northwestern says the school stands behind them.
“Our committee will not weigh in on geopolitics. We will not be distracted by the outside noises that suggest we cannot work for whatever reasons,” Brayboy and co-chair Effi Benmelech, an Israeli-born finance professor, wrote in an open letter announcing their work on Tuesday.
They defined their committee’s chief responsibilities: “Listen to members of our community through a lens of curiosity and empathy”; create new “pedagogical opportunities for Northwestern’s community to learn about antisemitism, hate, and Islamophobia”; and make recommendations to leadership.
The committee did not return a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment. A Northwestern spokesperson said the committee “represents Northwestern’s diverse perspectives,” adding, “We are confident in the work of this committee.”
The debate over the committee comes amid an ongoing parade of federal investigations into college campuses, many of them linked to the Israel-Hamas war. The Department of Education also announced new Title VI investigations this week into Yale University, Arizona State University, Ann Arbor Public Schools and a for-profit online law school. These join a list of more than 50 such investigations the department has opened since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The attack, and the war it sparked, triggered a wave of campus activism and antisemitism.
At least three of the latest investigations, including Northwestern’s, concern antisemitism complaints brought by conservative activists, while Ann Arbor’s concerns a complaint about anti-Muslim sentiment that was brought by a Muslim public affairs group. Some of the complaints are based on unclear incidents.
“Frankly, we don’t even know what the facts are,” Donald Daugherty, Jr., senior counsel at the Defense of Freedom Institute, told JTA about an antisemitism complaint his own organization filed, which triggered the investigation at Yale. “So I guess we need to know what the facts are before we can really decide on an appropriate, mutually acceptable resolution.”
Daugherty said his group, which was formed in 2021 by Trump- and Bush-era education officials, got involved in Title VI because of its focus on “federal education issues.” Its first civil rights complaint, filed against the Oak Park, Illinois, K-12 district in 2022, dealt with that district’s policy of implementing race-conscious grading.
The group switched gears to antisemitism complaints after Oct. 7. Several of the schools the institute has since filed antisemitism complaints about, including Drexel and Rutgers, have also seen investigations opened, though the institute said their complaints did not trigger them.
In his Yale complaint, Daugherty wrote that his institute filed it “as an interested third-party organization that strongly advocates for a republic where freedom, opportunity, creativity, and innovation flourish in our schools.” The complaint goes on to name two specific Jewish Yale students who reported having been blocked from attending a campus event on the war in Gaza. But, Daugherty told JTA, he’s never spoken to either of them.
“We were just observing, monitoring media accounts as to what’s going on,” he said. “And we thought, well, we’ve got to get involved and help push back against it because it’s, among other things, a civil rights violation.”
JTA has reached out to representatives of the two students and to Yale, which recently appointed its first-ever Jewish chaplain, for comment.
Daugherty noted that groups like his are legally entitled to file complaints without working with any affected parties. Indeed, it’s a practice that has grown in recent weeks as Title VI antisemitism complaints have picked up steam among Jews and activist groups.
Zachary Marschall, the Jewish editor-in-chief of the conservative higher education website Campus Reform, said he’s personally responsible for filing 20 complaints, including the ones that prompted new investigations this week into Northwestern and ASU. His complaints have also been responsible for recent investigations at Brown and Temple.
Marschall told JTA he files his complaints as a concerned citizen who has less to fear than Jewish students at these schools. “Since I’m in a position to speak out, I feel morally obligated to do what I can to fight antisemitism on college campuses,” he said.
Marschall said his complaint at Northwestern involves two allegations. The first concerns reports of a pro-Palestinian rally on campus at which the colors of the Palestinian flag were projected onto a building. The second involves an Oct. 17 open letter from the university’s Asian American Studies program that described Hamas as “a political group” and described posters comparing the group to ISIS as “Islamophobic messaging” and “anti-Palestinian war propaganda.”
The program director did not reply to a JTA request for comment. A Northwestern spokesperson said the school “does not tolerate antisemitism” and added, “The complaint against Northwestern was not filed by a member of our community but instead by an outside organization.”
Marschall said he wasn’t impressed by the language Northwestern used to introduce its new antisemitism committee.
“Higher education manipulates ‘empathy’ and ‘inclusivity’ to ignore, erase, and whitewash Jewish suffering,” he wrote to JTA. “Northwestern’s rhetoric contains the same manipulative ‘empathy’ language that has enabled university administrations to ignore Jew hate and anti-Jewish discrimination.”
He said his other newly opened Title VI complaint, against ASU, cites events and rallies put on by the Tempe, Arizona, state school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine in the days after Oct. 7. In response, an ASU spokesperson took a swipe at Marschall’s organization.
“Campus Reform, which says it ‘holds itself to rigorous journalism standards and strives to present each story with accuracy, objectivity, and public accountability,’ first learned about the letter to the Department of Education – because they sent the letter to the Department of Education,” the spokesperson wrote to JTA.
The spokesperson added that the university condemns “antisemitism and other hateful rhetoric in all its forms,” but emphasized, “ASU also is responsible for upholding free speech, as granted by the U.S. Constitution. The university neither endorses nor restricts opinions voiced at campus demonstrations. People on our campuses have the right to peacefully express their opinions as long as they comply with the law and the student Code of Conduct.”
Members of the Ann Arbor Public Schools board wordsmithed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, Jan. 18, 2023. (Andrew Lapin)
Meanwhile, the federal investigation into Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan concerns a complaint focused on anti-Palestinian sentiment that was filed by the state’s chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. The complaint alleges that a middle school counselor told a Palestinian student, “I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” and that the school board did not respond properly when the incident was brought to its attention.
“CAIR-MI welcomes the Office of Civil Rights opening a formal investigation into whether Ann Arbor Public Schools adequately addressed the alleged comments made by the counselor at Tappan Middle School,” Dawud Walid, CAIR Michigan’s executive director, said in a statement.
Walid continued, “Calling a Palestinian Muslim student a ‘terrorist’ is a very offensive and hurtful comment that was compounded by the school board’s seeming lack of concern for the student when it was brought to their attention.”
A spokesperson for the school district did not return a JTA request for comment, but the former board president, who is Palestinian, previously issued a statement saying the board is “deeply concerned and dismayed” over the incident and promised to address it properly. The school board recently made headlines for becoming one of the only school districts to call for a bilateral ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.
Finally, Abraham Lincoln University, a private, for-profit online law school based in California, is also the target of a new federal shared ancestry investigation. The school did not return JTA requests for comment.
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Ukraine Condemns Russian FM Lavrov’s Comments Calling Zelensky a ‘Pure Nazi,’ ‘Traitor to Jews’
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a press conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 18, 2025. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
Ukraine has lambasted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “pure Nazi” and a “traitor to the Jewish people,” describing his comments as antisemitic and urging Israel and Jewish organizations to condemn them.
Lavrov attacked Zelensky, who is Jewish, during a new interview published in Krasnaya Zvezda, the official publication of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“Zelensky made a 180-degree turn from a person who came to power with slogans of peace, with slogans like ‘leave the Russian language alone, it is our common language, our common culture’ and in six months turned into a pure Nazi and, as Russian President Vladimir Putin correctly said, a traitor to the Jewish people,” Lavrov said in remarks echoing the Kremlin’s propaganda that the Ukrainian president is “nazifying” Kyiv.
Lavrov’s comments resembled previous rhetoric from Putin in 2023, when he called Zelensky a “disgrace to Jewish people.”
In response, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced Lavrov’s remarks as “antisemitism,” noting the top Russian diplomat claimed in 2022 that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood.”
“Such statements are not just insane. They must be called out for what they truly are: antisemitism,” Heorhii Tykhyi posted on X/Twitter. “We urge Israel and Jewish organizations worldwide to condemn Lavrov’s repeated and outrageous falsehoods.”
“Zelensky is a pure Nazi and a traitor to the Jewish people”, said Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
Just to remind, in 2022, this same person claimed that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood”.
Such statements are not just insane. They must be called out for what they truly…
— Heorhii Tykhyi (@SpoxUkraineMFA) March 2, 2025
As part of its ongoing propaganda campaign to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, Russia has relied on such rhetoric and claims invoking the Nazis for decades, insisting that Kyiv has no distinct culture or state and has always been part of Moscow’s “own history, culture, and spiritual space.”
For example, in an attempt to justify the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin labeled its leaders as “neo-Nazis” and invoked World War II rhetoric, claiming that Russia’s so-called “special military operation” was meant to “de-nazify” the country.
Jewish community groups and the international community at large have repeatedly denounced Russia’s use of Holocaust and World War II terminology to justify its invasion of Ukraine, which Kyiv’s allies have condemned as an aggressive land grab.
Lavrov’s remarks came after a tense meeting between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump last week, as early steps for ceasefire negotiations remain fragile. The high-level White House talks on Friday added further uncertainty to a potential US-Ukraine deal on natural resources and peace efforts with Russia.
During the meeting, Trump and US Vice President JD Vance called on Kyiv to express greater gratitude for US support and accept a ceasefire with Russia, despite the lack of clear security guarantees from Washington.
Speaking with reporters in the room, Trump told Zelenskyy that he is not in a position to make any demands and accused him of “gambling with World War Three.”
“You don’t have the cards … You’ve allowed yourself to be put in a very bad position,” Trump said, referring to the ongoing war with Moscow.
After the meeting, Russian officials praised Trump for his “proper slap down” of Zelensky and dismissed the Ukrainian president’s claims that Russia illegally invaded the country in 2022.
Kremlin spokesperson Dimitri Peskov reportedly told reporters that Trump’s shift in foreign policy “largely coincides with our [Russia’s] vision.”
During the London Summit with European leaders last weekend, Turkey offered to host peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. As a NATO member, Turkey had previously facilitated negotiations after Russia’s 2022 invasion and helped secure a grain export deal in the Black Sea. Ankara has emphasized that any future discussions must include both countries.
The post Ukraine Condemns Russian FM Lavrov’s Comments Calling Zelensky a ‘Pure Nazi,’ ‘Traitor to Jews’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ivy League Schools Score Mediocre Grades in New ADL Campus Report Card
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
Ivy League institutions launched mediocre policy responses to rising anti-Jewish hatred during the 2023-2024 academic year, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Campus Antisemitism Report Card.
Released on Monday, halfway into spring term, the report lists grades that are based on two criteria, “what’s happening on campus” and “university policies and responsive action.” In total, the ADL assessed 135 colleges and universities across the US, only eight of which — Elon University, Vanderbilt University, University of Alabama, Florida International University, University of Miami, City University of New York’s (CUNY) Brooklyn College, CUNY Queens College, and Brandeis University — merited an “A” grade.
No Ivy League institution — save Dartmouth College, which notched a “B” grade — earned better than a “C,” a mark given to Brown University, Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Princeton University, Yale University, and Columbia University rated lowest, scoring “D” grades.
“I said it last year, and I’ll say it again: every single campus should get an ‘A.’ This isn’t a high bar — this should be standard,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a press release announcing the report. “While many campuses have improved in ways that are encouraging and commendable, Jewish students still do not feel safe or included on too many campuses. The progress we’ve seen is evidence that change is possible — all university leaders should focus on addressing these very real challenges with real action.”
Harvard’s receiving a “C” comes amid a period described by observers as a low point in its history. The institution, America’s oldest and arguably most prestigious, recently settled a merged lawsuit in which two groups accused it of refusing to discipline an allegedly antisemitic professor and other perpetrators of anti-Jewish discrimination, hate speech, and harassment. For months, the university’s legal counsel strove to dismiss the complainant’s charges, arguing that they lacked legal standing. Meanwhile, its highly reputed Law School saw its student government issue a defamatory resolution which accused Israel of genocide; its students quoted terrorists during an “Apartheid Week” event held in April; and dozens of its students and faculty participated in an illegal pro-Hamas encampment attended by members of a group that had shared an antisemitic cartoon earlier that year.
Antisemitic outrages have continued into the 2024-2025 academic year. In November, Harvard’s Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life was criticized by rising Jewish civil rights activist Shabbos Kestenbaum for omitting any mention of antisemitism from a statement precipitated by antisemitic behavior. The sharp words followed the office’s response to a hateful demonstration on campus in which pro-Hamas students stood outside Harvard Hillel and called for it to banned from campus.
“We have noticed a trend of expression in which entire groups of students are told they ‘are not welcome here’ because of their religious, cultural, ethnic, or political commitments and identities, or are targeted through acts of vandalism,” the office said, seemingly circumventing the matter at hand. “We find this trend disturbing and anathema to the dialogue and connection across lines of difference that must be a central value and practice of a pluralistic institution of higher learning.”
In response, Kestenbaum, said: “Harvard Jews were told by masked students ‘Zionists aren’t welcome here’ outside of the Hillel, the Chaplain Office finally released a statement that did not include the words Jew, Zionism, Israel, or antisemitism. A total abdication of religious responsibility.”
Columbia University’s poor mark reflects a widely held view that its officials have failed to prevent anti-Zionist activists — both professors and students — from fostering a noxious campus environment in which denigrating Jews and advocating for the destruction of Israel is defended as the pursuit of social justice.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Columbia University remains one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has produced some of the most indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.
Amid these incidents, the university has struggled to contain members of the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which just last month committed an act of infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may be the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.
CUAD struck Columbia again on Wednesday, occupying the Milbank Hall administrative building at Barnard College to protest disciplinary sanctions imposed on student activists as punishment for a previous incident. During the demonstration, a staff member was so badly assaulted as to require medical attention, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
Amid these issues, many schools did see their grades improve over the previous year, the ADL said, explaining that over 50 percent of the schools included in the Campus Report Card — including Vanderbilt University, which did not earn an “A” last year while Harvard was given an “F” — moved to improve the campus climate for Jewish students.
“The improvement on campus is largely due to new administrative initiatives implemented in response to the campus antisemitism crisis,” ADL vice president of advocacy, Shira Goodman, said on Monday. “We’re glad that improving the campus climate for Jewish students was a priority for many of these schools, and we hope all colleges and universities understand the importance of developing and enforcing strong policies and procedures to create a safe and welcoming environment for Jewish students and all students.”
Higher education institutions have an added incentive to address antisemitism, as the reelection of US President Donald Trump in November brought to Washington, DC a chief executive who has threatened to tax the endowments of those that do not.
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump issued an executive order which directed the federal government to employ “all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” Additionally, the order initiated a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.
“This failure is unacceptable,” Trump said. “It shall be the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Ivy League Schools Score Mediocre Grades in New ADL Campus Report Card first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Leftist Internet Personality Confronts Ritchie Torres Over Israel Support, Unleashes Lewd and Antisemitic Tirade
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
In a viral video which circulated over the weekend, a leftist social media influencer followed US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on the streets of New York City, hurling antisemitic, sexually explicit, and racially charged rhetoric at the lawmaker over his support for Israel.
The influencer, who goes by “Crackhead Barney,” confronted and grilled Torres about his stance on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The provocateur, whose real name has not been revealed to the public, taunted Torres as a “coon” and asked the lawmaker why he supports a so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
“Why are you sucking Zionist c—k?” Barney asked.
“You’re a coon. Why do you suck Zionist c—k? Is it the money?” the influencer asked. “Show us the money, Ritchie. Show us the money.”
When asked by Torres if she supports the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the influencer responded “of course.” She then claimed that Israel “is the biggest terrorist organization.” The social media personality lambasted Torres as a “terrorist” and stated that he “sucks [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s c—k.”
The leftist firebrand accused Torres of accepting “genocidal money” and asked him if he was “going to kill more babies?” She also admitted to interrupting Torres’s event at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan to protest the war in Gaza.
The content creator attempted to coax Torres multiple times into saying “Free Palestine,” a phrase which many observers interpret as a call for the destruction of Israel.
“Say ‘free Palestine’ and I will leave you alone,” Barney said.
“There is no universe in which I will say that,” Torres responded.
After finally relenting and allowing Torres to walk away, Barney shouted “free Palestine!” multiple times and said the lawmaker “supports the mass murder of babies.”
The internet personality has gained notoriety for ambushing celebrities and high-profile media figures in public, conducting impromptu interviews and engaging in provocative behavior. In the 16 months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of 1,200 people throughout southern Israel, Barney has started targeting and harassing public figures supportive of the Jewish state. In April 2024, she made headlines after she confronted actor Alec Baldwin and pressed him to say, “Free Palestine.”
Torres, a self-described progressive, has established himself as a stalwart ally of the Jewish state. Torres has repeatedly defended Israel from unsubstantiated claims of committing “genocide” in Gaza. He has also consistently supported the continued shipment of American arms to help the Jewish state defend itself from Hamas terrorists. The lawmaker has directed sharp criticism toward university administrators for allowing Jewish students to be threatened on campus without consequence.
Warning: The video below contains lewd and explicit language.
I was walking on the streets of NYC when suddenly a pro-Hamas extremist began harassing me and hurling racial slurs. The confrontation illustrates just how unhinged the hate and harassment can be against those of us who have stood with Israel in the wake of 10/7.
Warning: the… pic.twitter.com/4QkzLAxNyx
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) March 2, 2025
The post Leftist Internet Personality Confronts Ritchie Torres Over Israel Support, Unleashes Lewd and Antisemitic Tirade first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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