In one of his first executive orders, President Trump declared that, following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Jewish college students “have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination,” including “denial of access to campus common areas and facilities” and “intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault.” In a March statement, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon claimed that “Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety.”
In response, the administration has frozen billions of dollars in research funding to leading universities; deported or detained a number of international students associated with pro-Palestinian campus protests; stripped over 1,500 international students of their visas; and warned 60 colleges and universities they may be subject to enforcement actions under the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs.
As news accounts and reports by task forces at Harvard, Columbia and Stanford demonstrate, some colleges and universities did experience incidents of overt antisemitism after the Israel-Hamas war started, and many Jewish students deemed campus environments to be hostile and unsafe (as did many Muslim students).
But the Trump administration’s narrative and response are clearly overblown. One might even suspect that the sanctions on universities are as much about antisemitism as Trump’s tariffs are about fentanyl.
In a U.S. News survey taken at the height of campus unrest last spring, over two-thirds of students at the nation’s top 25 universities said antisemitism either was not a problem or only a small problem on their campuses; only 14 percent considered it a “huge problem.” Surveys also indicate that antisemitism is less of a problem among college students than it is among the general public.
Antisemitism should, of course, never be ignored. But neither should there be a rush to judgment or to punishment.
Campus antisemitism cannot be managed by a one-size-fits-all approach, but there are general principles that should guide the best response.
First, we need to define the problem. There is no single widely accepted definition of antisemitism. The Trump administration uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, but some of its examples, such as “applying double standards” to Israel, remain controversial and raise First Amendment concerns.
As Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias observed, when community members “experience hateful conduct and exclusion, the problem is the conduct and the exclusion — not whether it maps onto a lengthy definition of antisemitism or any other form of bias.”
Hateful conduct takes many forms, ranging from violence and harassment to condemnation, shunning and exclusion. Each requires a policy response appropriate to the alleged offense and a recognition that what seems hateful to some may appear as legitimate political expression to others. Many Jewish students experienced pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic, even as most protesters insisted they were anti-Israel, not antisemitic.
Before choosing how to respond, academic leaders must understand and correctly categorize the nature and extent of the challenges they face.
Second, we must tailor the response to the offense. Chanting “from the river to the sea” at 4 p.m. in a quad where protest is permitted is protected political expression. Chanting it at 4 a.m. outside a Jewish student’s dorm room is harassment. Offensive expression may be condemned, but it should not be sanctioned.
Some conduct — especially if it involves violence, harassment or destruction of property — requires prompt disciplinary action. Other conduct, such as violating noise limits, may lead to lesser penalties. Still other conduct, such as shunning and exclusion, may require institutions to adopt programmatic responses, such as teaching the history of conflict in the Middle East and efforts to promote civil discourse.
We must also beware generalizations. When a Cornell student with mental health issues posted online threats of violence against Jewish students, critics denounced the school as a hotbed of antisemitism, even though the student making the threats acted alone and was quickly arrested, prosecuted and expelled.
Generalizing from isolated incidents can misrepresent reality; alarm students; anger the public; and prompt unwise and unwarranted responses, ranging from canceled classes to repressive policies against protest and free expression.
At the same time, several seemingly isolated incidents may contribute to a hostile environment requiring broader and more systematic responses. Among the questions administrators should ask: Is antisemitism pervasive? Are relevant university policies adequate and, if so, are they being fairly and consistently enforced? How can the university best communicate with and support concerned individuals and groups?
Fourth, we must respect due process. Any student facing disciplinary proceedings is entitled to a prompt and fair hearing and a decision based on the evidence. The same is true for colleges and universities subject to investigation by the government.
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs, sets out a detailed, mandatory process for addressing complaints that an institution has failed to respond adequately to discrimination, harassment or conduct creating a hostile environment. Before sanctions may be imposed, the government must provide notice, seek a voluntary resolution agreement and, if that fails, make “an express finding on the record, after opportunity for hearing, of a failure to comply” with the law.
Title VI does not authorize what the Trump administration has done to numerous Ivy League and other universities: make a declaration of guilt followed by a freeze on billions of dollars of research grants.
Finally, penalties must be targeted and proportionate. Under Title VI, the withholding of federal government funding should be “a last resort, to be used only if all else fails,” and then only in connection with the program in which a violation is found. The Trump administration’s funding freeze, undertaken without identifying any specific violations, is a form of collective punishment, making an entire group responsible for the acts of a few of its members.
Wildly disproportionate to the universities’ alleged failings, it is being applied indiscriminately to everyone involved in research grants, even though the vast majority have no connection to antisemitic conduct.
The damage — in chilling free speech, sacrificing the next generation of researchers and stifling discoveries that can benefit countless millions of people — may be irreparable.
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. David Wippman is emeritus president of Hamilton College.
