By: Fern Sidman

As American colleges and universities prepare for the start of a new academic year, the nation’s leading Jewish advocacy organizations are intensifying pressure on higher education institutions to confront what they describe as a persistent and deeply entrenched problem of antisemitism on campus.

On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hillel International, and the Jewish Federations of North America issued a joint statement urging universities to fulfill their legal obligations under Titles VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The coalition advanced a five-part framework, calling for stricter enforcement of protest rules, rejection of the boycott-Israel movement, and a renewed commitment to intellectual diversity as cornerstones of any credible response to campus antisemitism.

The statement, reported on Tuesday by The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), arrives against the backdrop of intensifying federal oversight, multi-million-dollar settlements between universities and the U. S. Department of Education, and an increasingly polarized national debate over the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in American academia.

The joint appeal reflects a rare moment of coordination among Jewish organizations often divided by denominational, political, or strategic differences. According to the report at JNS, the groups’ recommendations focus on five key areas:

Enforcement of “time, place, and manner” restrictions on campus protests. Administrators, they argue, must ensure that demonstrations — including those targeting Israel or Jewish students — do not escalate into harassment or disruption of academic life.

Firm rejection of academic boycotts. Specifically, the groups call on universities to distance themselves from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, a movement they describe as inherently discriminatory.

Promotion of intellectual diversity. Universities, they contend, must foster open debate rather than cultivate ideological uniformity.

Protection of Jewish students under existing civil rights law. By invoking Titles VI and VII, the organizations stress that universities are legally required to prevent discrimination based on shared ancestry and religion.

Concrete disciplinary and institutional reform measures. These include faculty accountability, curricular transparency, and safeguards ensuring that Jewish students can thrive without fear of harassment.

Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, emphasized to JNS that the initiative is not merely about shielding students from harm but about enabling their full participation in academic life. “Expecting to be physically safe should be table stakes,” Fingerhut declared. “Jewish students also deserve to thrive academically and socially in their campus communities. These recommendations provide universities with concrete steps to create environments where Jewish students can pursue their education without fear of harassment or exclusion.”

Despite its breadth, the statement drew criticism from certain Jewish thought leaders who argued that the coalition sidestepped the structural drivers of campus antisemitism. David Bernstein, founder of the North American Values Institute, told JNS that while he welcomed the call for reform, the statement failed to address what he described as the pernicious influence of DEI frameworks.

“The statement was a lost opportunity not to explicitly call out university diversity, equity and inclusion programs that stifle intellectual diversity at every turn,” Bernstein argued. “Any university program that advances a singular oppressed-oppressor narrative creates a culture that’s permissive of antisemitism. Jewish organizations know this and should stop ignoring the elephant in the room.”

Dumisani Washington, founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, echoed this sentiment in his remarks to JNS, contending that both DEI and critical ethnic studies curricula have exacerbated hostility toward Jewish and pro-Israel students. “Over the past few years, there have been in-depth studies proving that DEI and CES have greatly increased campus antisemitism,” Washington said. “This, coupled with the fact that the U. S. government has yet to address the billions in foreign funding still flowing to our colleges and universities, especially from hostile nations like Qatar and China, will mean that the problem of anti-Israel, antisemitic, anti-American indoctrination will increase.”

These warnings arrive at a time when the Trump administration has moved aggressively to tie federal funding to universities’ handling of antisemitism and their use of DEI programming. As JNS has reported, last month the Department of Education announced a landmark $200 million settlement with Columbia University following allegations that the institution failed to protect Jewish students.

Linda Mc Mahon, Secretary of Education in the current administration, declared that Columbia had agreed to a suite of reforms that went well beyond financial penalties. The university consented to discipline student offenders for severe disruptions, restructure its faculty senate, incorporate viewpoint diversity into Middle Eastern studies, eliminate racial preferences in admissions and hiring, and dismantle DEI programs that awarded benefits based on race.

Mc Mahon hailed the settlement as “a seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.” Her statement, cited by JNS, placed an emphasis on the administration’s broader strategy of leveraging federal funding to compel universities to recalibrate their institutional priorities.

The Columbia case may be only the beginning. According to the information provided in the JNS report, the Department of Education currently has some 60 universities under review for alleged failures to safeguard Jewish students. Harvard University is reportedly weighing a $500 million settlement, while the University of California system has been offered a staggering $1 billion deal to resolve similar claims.

The University of California, Los Angeles has already entered into a multi-million-dollar agreement, marking another high-profile instance of federal intervention. Such settlements represent an unprecedented level of financial exposure for elite universities, long seen as untouchable in their governance practices.

Congress has also intensified its scrutiny. Earlier this month, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce convened hearings to probe what it identified as key drivers of campus antisemitism: DEI policies, foreign funding streams, faculty unions, and faculty members espousing antisemitic views. As JNS reported, Republican members have explicitly linked the rise in antisemitism to the prevalence of DEI offices and the influence of foreign donors, particularly from Qatar and China.

The committee’s findings mirror arguments advanced by conservative activists and Jewish advocacy groups, who contend that DEI frameworks encourage binary thinking that casts Jews as privileged oppressors. Proponents of DEI reject this characterization, insisting their work seeks to rectify systemic inequities. Nonetheless, the congressional spotlight has amplified demands for universities to justify not only their handling of antisemitic incidents but also their broader institutional ideologies.

While the administration has pursued aggressive measures, including a directive that states certify schools as free of “illegal DEI” to maintain federal funding, the judiciary has proven less receptive. In April, a federal court issued a temporary halt to the policy, and just last week a federal judge in Maryland ruled that the plan was unconstitutional on free speech grounds.

The ruling has created an uncertain legal environment, one in which universities remain under immense political and financial pressure while simultaneously armed with legal arguments against federal overreach. The JNS report observed that the interplay between executive action, congressional scrutiny, and judicial review will likely define the contours of the fight against campus antisemitism for years to come.

For Jewish students, the convergence of political, financial, and cultural battles has created both new protections and new anxieties. The settlements at Columbia and UCLA signal that universities can no longer ignore claims of antisemitic discrimination without consequence. Yet the growing polarization around DEI and free speech means that Jewish students are often caught in the crossfire of larger national debates.

As JNS has emphasized in its reporting, Jewish students increasingly face a campus culture in which pro-Israel speech is stigmatized, anti-Zionist activism is normalized, and administrative responses are inconsistent. The proposed five-part framework from Jewish organizations seeks to provide clarity by establishing enforceable standards, but its effectiveness will depend on universities’ willingness to prioritize these measures over entrenched ideological commitments.

The confluence of advocacy by Jewish organizations, federal enforcement by the Trump administration, congressional investigations, and mounting legal challenges has placed higher education at an inflection point. Universities are being forced to reconcile their historic self-conception as bastions of academic freedom with the legal and moral imperatives of protecting vulnerable student populations.

As the JNS report highlighted, the debate over campus antisemitism is no longer confined to questions of protest management or curricular bias. It has become a referendum on the very structure of higher education in America: how universities are funded, how they define diversity, and how they reconcile free speech with the prevention of harassment.

For Jewish organizations, the message is clear: Jewish students must not only be safe but must thrive in environments free from discrimination. For universities, the challenge is equally stark: adapt to a new era of accountability or risk crippling financial, legal, and reputational costs.

The coming academic year will test whether universities can move beyond rhetoric to genuine reform. The stakes, as outlined by Jewish leaders and detailed by JNS, are nothing less than the integrity of American higher education and the safety of its Jewish students.