The Department of Justice has taken legal action against UCLA, accusing the university of negligence in combating discrimination and violence aimed at Jewish and Israeli students. This lawsuit comes in response to incidents during a 2024 protest at UCLA, where agitators reportedly assaulted and pepper-sprayed students.
Human rights attorney Brooke Goldstein highlights the politicization of antisemitism. University campuses have become focal points in the national discourse on antisemitism, spurred by the 2023 Israel-Hamas war and subsequent protests. An Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report reveals that while student protests receive significant attention, less scrutiny is given to what transpires in academic environments.
According to the report, some professors and teaching assistants have integrated anti-Israel activism into their coursework. In several cases, they have allegedly offered extra credit for attending anti-Israel events and discriminated against Jewish and Israeli students in classrooms.
The ADL indicates that faculty conduct and curriculum choices, occurring in what they term the “relative opacity of academic spaces,” are harder for outsiders to monitor. In January 2025, the ADL, with Hillel International and College Pulse, found that 27.3% of Jewish students observed faculty engaging in antisemitic behavior. This behavior contributes to a perception of a hostile campus environment.
The report provides examples of faculty injecting these dynamics into courses, including content and readings, political activism, and treatment of Jewish and Israeli students. There’s mention of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley canceling classes for protests and offering extra credit for participation in events like “Thinking from Palestine: Dispossession, Liberation, and Return.” However, UC Berkeley’s Asst. Vice Chancellor, Dan Mogulof, denies any record of extra credit being offered for such events.
A UCLA teaching assistant allegedly offered extra credit for attending events billed as “anti-settler colonial” protests. The ADL’s account of these incidents includes faculty singling out Jewish and Israeli students. For instance, Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism reported negative remarks directed at Jewish students, labeling some with combat roles in the Israeli Defense Forces as “murderers.”
In response to these findings, Columbia University, for instance, is working to implement task force recommendations to improve reporting mechanisms for bias and ensure inclusive environments. Their efforts involve active collaboration with Jewish organizations on campus.
The ADL emphasizes that antisemitic actions by faculty are especially concerning due to the authority professors hold. Such behaviors contribute significantly to an unsafe atmosphere for students. To address this, the organization calls on universities to enact comprehensive measures to counter antisemitism and ensure safe learning spaces for all students.
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