 NEW YORK (Press Release) — The Anti-Defamation League assigned a “D” grade to UC San Diego over antisemitism on the campus. The grading was part of a nationwide evaluation of major universities throughout the country.
San Diego Jewish World highlights UCSD in the following ADL report: What Grade Did Your School Receive? The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has 800 Jewish students, comprising 3% of the undergraduate student population, and 800 Jewish graduate students, comprising 12% of the graduate student population. There is a Hillel, Chabad and Jewish Greek life organizations. What’s Happening on Campus? There have been several antisemitic incidents on campus in the last year. In April 2023, a comment stating the “second Holocaust coming soon” was left on an Instagram post of a Jewish student group. In May 2023, swastikas were smeared in feces on the walls of a residence hall bathroom. In late October, the UCSD Associated Students Council (ASC) endorsed a letter by UCSD’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter that labeled Israel an “apartheid state.” At a subsequent meeting, the ASC failed to pass a resolution that would have condemned antisemitism and would have apologized for endorsing SJP’s letter. In November, the ASC did condemn antisemitism following an outcry from Jewish students. In November 2023, a Jewish student wearing a Star of David necklace was approached and harassed with comments about genocide and ethnic cleansing. That same month, UCSD police had to evacuate Jewish students from an Associated Students Council meeting where antisemitism was being discussed following harassment by anti-Israel protesters outside of the building. There were also multiple rallies featuring anti-Zionist and pro-terror rhetoric, and posters of hostages were ripped down during a student walk-out. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced in December that it is investigating UCSD for potential Title VI violations. In March 2024, the ASC passed a resolution calling for divestment from Israel. Also in March, the University issued an advisory to all staff and students asking the community to “consider avoiding the area” on the day of a protest organized by SJP. In May 2024, protestors from the encampment, including members of JVP, organized an anti-Zionist Shabbat on campus. In June 2024, UCSD academic workers joined other UC campuses in striking following the dismantling of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on campus. University Policies and Responsive Action The University, along with other UC schools, has made several statements condemning antisemitism in the wake of October 7. The University has clarified that its anti-discrimination policy explicitly includes antisemitism. UCSD established the “Tritons Belong” initiative to support the campus community and encourage conversation, dialogue and connections. The campus also has mandatory Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training for all incoming students which addresses issues of antisemitism. In response to the ASC BDS resolution, the University issued a statement reiterating the position of all 10 UC campus chancellors in opposition to calls to boycott and divest from Israel. However, the resolution does establish an oversight committee that is being charged with reviewing the student government budget allocated to companies that support Israel. Following the establishment of a ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” University administration arrested 60 protesters, including 40 students and faculty, in May 2024. Sharing his first in-depth insights into his decision to remove a large pro-Palestinian encampment last month, University of California, San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla says he feared the violence seen at some other schools. “We have a 2,000-acre campus we have to protect. My job was to keep them safe.” Police arrested 66 people during the dismantling and during the sometimes violent protests that followed. At the University’s commencement ceremony this weekend, thousands of students and spectators enjoyed the event largely without protests. Incidents Severe antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents *
ADL Updates Report Card Grades After Spike in Antisemitic Activity on Campuses Which schools raised their grades and which schools are falling behind? Given the extreme volatility of the current campus climate, ADL today announced revised grades for some of the 85 schools assessed in our Campus Antisemitism Report Card, an initiative released in a beta version in April that assesses each of those schools’ campus climates and administrative policies related to countering antisemitism.
The Report Card tool assigned grades to provide campus leadership, parents, students, alumni and other key stakeholders with a mechanism to evaluate the state of antisemitism on campus and how schools are responding. “When we released these grades last month, we did not dare to imagine how much more challenging this school year would get for Jewish students,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “The incidents of recent weeks connected to the encampments and other on-campus protests are putting students’ safety at risk and even prompting some schools to cancel graduation. It is completely unacceptable that some university leaders have let the situation get this out of hand.” To date, ADL has tracked more than 2,600 arrests; Jewish students are feeling threatened and, in some cases, unsafe. While some college and university administrations have met the moment and implemented additional protections, many have not. ADL reassessed each of the 85 schools included in the Report Card, taking into account recent escalations, the impact on levels of antisemitism on campus, and responses from university leadership. Grades changed for several of the schools that we have told you about here. For example, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University and UCLA each dropped to an F, while the University of Virginia rose to a D and Rice University came up to a C. Universities have the opportunity to submit updated information in October if they wish to have their grades reassessed, and we will continue to update the Report Card on an annual basis each April. The Campus Antisemitism Report Card is a vital part of ADL’s Not On My Campus campaign, which calls on U.S. colleges and universities to commit to a ‘no tolerance policy’ for antisemitism and provides online tools and resources for students, parents, and alumni, empowering them to demand more from college leadership, and building collective action to hold schools accountable for their inaction. View all of the updated Report Cards here, then click here to send a letter demanding that the leaders of the schools you care about do better in combating antisemitism today. CUNY, Michigan. Neither the University of Michigan nor the City University of New York adequately investigated complaints about antisemitic harassment on campus linked to the Israel-Hamas war, according to the results of investigations by the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). In its resolution agreement, the University of Michigan agreed to a series of steps to assess and improve the campus climate and policies, and CUNY agreed to investigate or revisit investigations of a number of complaints and report back to OCR. These resolutions are just the first of what we hope will be many; OCR has opened more than 100 Title VI investigations since Oct. 7. TAKE ACTION: Click here to insist on full funding for OCR’s work to protect Jewish students. UCLA. The media coverage seemed to sigh in relief as dozens of UCLA graduation ceremonies brought joy to graduating students and their families after encampments and protests brought tension to the campus. The most recent demonstration, on June 10, ended with 25 protesters under arrest and ordered to stay away from campus for two weeks, so security measures for commencement were stepped up. There were no high-profile disruptions reported at other University of California school commencement ceremonies over the weekend. Colorado. BDS demonstrators linked in media reports to the group SDS Denver (Students for a Democratic Society) were confronted by pro-Israel counter-protesters outside the home of a University of Colorado Regent, Ilana Spiegel. The groups were kept separate by law enforcement. Spiegel noted that the BDS demands of the protesters were not, in fact, ignored. They were rejected. “The Board of Regents has not ignored the demands of protestors. We said: ‘No regent is offering any policy changes in response to the demands.’ In my opinion, that is saying NO.”
Stanford. Hundreds of Stanford University graduates walked out of commencement ceremonies, with some citing BDS objectives for the demonstration. This comes a week after students were arrested for barricading themselves in the offices of the Stanford President and Provost; those protesters were identified by the University, which suspended a number of them. This week, an editor from the student newspaper who took part in that office takeover was demoted by the newspaper and then resigned. Minnesota. Amid heavy scrutiny, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies revoked the offer to Raz Segal to head the institution. This backpedaling came after two members of the center’s advisory board resigned in protest and several Jewish leaders voiced their concerns over his characterization of the Israeli military operation against Hamas as “a textbook case of genocide.” As the region’s JCRC noted in their letter pushing to revoke the job offer, the work of the center “is too important to be led by an extremist.” |
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Out of the Ivory Tower. As UCLA headed into a tense graduation week, Professor Dov Waxman, director of UCLA’s Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, found himself in a harsh new reality where he and other teachers needed to keep students safe and supported as protesters, media, law enforcement, outsiders and others all focused their attention on campus. Rather than retreating into an ivory tower, he stepped up to bear witness, to provide context for his students and even to keep protesters apart. |
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Some Day We’ll Dance Again. In a much-needed counter to the appalling pro-Hamas noise outside the Nova Music Festival Exhibition now being shown in NYC, Rolling Stone magazine is now running a series of photos of the exhibition. They show snapshots of the remnants of the deadly day — a car shot up during the violence, photos of those murdered that day, and even prosaic remnants left behind, from shoes to porta potties. No Jokes for You. Jerry Seinfeld, who has been an outspoken supporter of Israel, has faced critics for this stance whether during comedy gigs or, recently, while addressing commencement at Duke University. One vocal critic may regret speaking up, as Seinfeld shaded a member of the audience at a comedy show this month who began chanting pro-Palestinian slogans. The audience roared as Seinfeld heckled the heckler who was being removed by security. He continues to do what he does best — use humor to diffuse tension and spotlight the absurdity and bigotry of targeting a Jewish comedian’s show to make a “political” point. *  In another campus development, on June 17, 2024, StandWithUs was pleased to learn that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has resolved a Title VI Civil Rights complaint filed in November 2021, along with three students, against Hunter College, a CUNY school. StandWithUs’ complaint alleged a pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students in Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work. It focused in particular on the administration’s failure to address virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic content in an end-of-the-year Zoom class session during the spring of 2021, despite ample knowledge of what transpired. StandWithUs commends the courageous Hunter College students who came forward to hold Hunter accountable for unaddressed antisemitism.
“We are gratified that OCR’s years-long investigation is finally concluded, with OCR determining what the student complainants have been saying from the outset: that the administration’s response was wholly inadequate because it did not speak with the students who attended the hostile class session to learn of its impact on them, nor did it communicate to students who reported concerns about antisemitism in the Silberman program any administrative action to investigate or address the issue,” said Carly Gammill, Director of Legal Strategy in the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department
As OCR validated in its findings, the administration initiated a timely investigation by speaking to the dean of the program and the professors responsible for the classes, but never interviewed the students who attended the Zoom sessions and experienced antisemitism that day.
OCR concluded that “Hunter did not have a basis to support its [internal] determination that the impact of the incidents was not so severe or pervasive as to limit or deny students’ access to education.” OCR further expressed its concern that Hunter “may have allowed a hostile environment based on national origin to exist for some students of shared Jewish ancestry in the Program, including those who had to take the… course to complete their degree.”
OCR’s resolution agreement with CUNY requires Hunter to re-open its investigation into the 2021 Zoom sessions that formed the primary basis for the StandWithUs complaint, including specifically reaching out to the student attendees regarding what occurred and how it impacted them. Hunter must subsequently provide OCR with the results of that investigation, including any remedial action CUNY intends to take should it conclude that a hostile antisemitic environment did, in fact, exist.
“One of our primary interests in submitting this Title VI complaint was ensuring that the student complainants would have the opportunity for their specific experiences and concerns to be heard—and addressed—by the administration,” said Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs Co-founder and CEO. “Although the administration’s initial attempt to handle this matter was deficient in failing to include this crucial information, we are pleased that under the OCR resolution agreement, the administration will now be required to get it right, and we look forward to hearing what action the school will take to remedy the hostile antisemitic environment to which these students were subjected.” * The law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres filed an amended federal lawsuit against Columbia University and Barnard College on behalf of Jewish and Israeli students who are victims of egregious, pervasive, and ongoing antisemitism. The complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York on June 17, 2024, on behalf of StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice (SCLJ) and over 45 student plaintiffs, seeks injunctive relief and monetary damages concerning Columbia’s alleged violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as claims for breach of contract and for conspiring to deny Jewish students’ civil rights under the KKK laws.
The lawsuit includes over 230 pages of antisemitic conduct committed by students and professors against Jewish students—known to the administration and intentionally permitted to fester with little to no consequences since the initial court filing on February 21, 2024. Allegations in the amended complaint include:
Since the lawsuit’s initial filing, Columbia President Shafik has conceded that Columbia has “a hostile environment in violation of Title VI,” yet has failed to take any effective steps to stop or deter the egregious misconduct and in fact instead has permitted or enabled the antisemitic acts.
“As a result of Columbia’s deliberate indifference to their hostile educational environment, plaintiffs have been unable to equally participate in or benefit fully from their Columbia education,” said Yael Lerman, SCLJ Director. “Jewish student plaintiffs report fearing for their physical safety, enduring anti-Jewish abuse and harassment, and communicating with Columbia administrators in vain over antisemitism.”
“Rather than combat the antisemitism that President Shafik admits exists on campus, Columbia has chosen to conspire with and aid antisemitic agitators in trampling its Jewish students’ rights, including by supporting and acquiescing to the demands of its encampment,” said Carly Gammill, SCLJ Director of Legal Strategy. “In doing so, Columbia has left Jewish students no choice but to invoke federal civil rights legislation like Title VI and the Ku Klux Klan Act to protect them. We hope this lawsuit will allow them to vindicate the basic constitutional rights that Columbia is denying them.”
Preceding provided by StandWithUs
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