Campus antisemitism doesn’t persist because universities are unaware, but because they make placating statements and gestures while refusing to meaningfully act.
Last month, Jewish students testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Numerous witnesses painted a bleak picture that should have settled the question, but it didn’t. The evidence that campus antisemitism remains ongoing is overwhelming, and the will to confront it is absent.
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What administrators call “progress” is, in reality, a perverse system of delay, deflection, and “deliberate indifference” that fuels antisemitic harassment and exclusion. On March 20, the Department of Justice sued Harvard University on those grounds. In August 2025, the DOJ found George Washington University had engaged in deliberate indifference. Earlier that year, the Department of Education concluded that the university retaliated against students who reported antisemitic abuse. These are formal findings backed by lived experience.
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At the civil rights hearing, George Washington University sophomore Mara Riegel described a campus where she “walks on eggshells,” facing “merciless” scrutiny and receiving “not a shred of justice” after reporting harassment. Junior Archer Benson spoke of “virulent antisemitism” and academic dysfunction, recounting a professor’s patently warped claim that “Hamas is a creation of Israel,” as if Adolf Hitler were a creation of the Jews.
Defenders of Harvard and GWU point to administrators attending Jewish events, offering “care and compassion” in meetings, and taking the issue of antisemitism “seriously.” Once more, gestures are not governance. Listening without acting is not leadership. When administrators hear complaints, promise change, fail to deliver, and allow conditions to worsen, that is not neutrality, but deliberate indifference.
This year, GWU students share the feeling of being excluded from organizations and being inundated with anti-Israel curricula, absent competing views. Students for Justice in Palestine continues hosting so-called “liberation” events that serve as ideological enforcement.
In the wake of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Harvard, sophomore Tejas Billa noted that the university has failed to implement key recommendations from its own antisemitism task force. Classroom viewpoint diversity has not improved. Students hesitate to speak openly, fearing social and academic consequences.
Nevertheless, the ADL’s 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card has been cited as evidence of progress. Nearly half of the schools assessed saw improved grades. But companion reports demonstrated that nearly half of all students, whether Jewish or not, still witnessed or experienced anti-Jewish conduct. Some numbers may look better, but the idea that things are improving in any meaningful sense is a convenient illusion.
Consider the schools praised for improvement. Among others, New York University and American University, both awarded top grades, remain rife with anti-Zionist faculty who tend to shape academic departments and the intellectual climate. Such faculty have censored viewpoint diversity, promoted distortions and fabrications to vilify Israel, mobilized students toward antisemitic protests and events, and even postponed exams or used class time to make way for anti-Israel activism. These are clear breaches of faculty codes and, if tolerated by those governing the institution, can amount to violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and lead to the loss of federal funding.
University leaders bear a duty to ensure that those codes are enforced and that the law is upheld. While accountability remains optional, we are still told that administrators are addressing the issue and everything is under control when it is clearly not.
A lawsuit filed against George Washington alleges that a Jewish guest speaker was shouted down and prevented from continuing after expressing her Jewish identity. Faculty praised the disruptor and apologized for inviting the speaker. No disciplinary action followed. The professors remain. That message is unmistakable.
Harvard offers a parallel case. A professor reportedly halted a student presentation upon learning she was from Israel and ordered her to leave the class. No consequences followed. The professor still teaches.
And we must not forget former Harvard President Claudine Gay, who resigned after a disastrous congressional hearing and was later exposed for plagiarism. Even after that, she remains on the faculty and is scheduled to teach three courses next academic year.
In practice, administrative “progress” consists of nothing more than promises without follow-through and consequences without teeth. If universities were not indifferent, they would swiftly dismantle the systems enabling this climate. They would hold faculty accountable. They would enforce their own codes. They would act. Simple.
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The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Harvard calls for independent oversight and structural reforms to ensure accountability and restore intellectual diversity. That approach should not be limited to one institution. It should become the enforcement standard for every university, and certainly for everyone who receives federal funding.
Until universities impose real consequences on faculty, administrators, and the systems they protect, antisemitism will continue to fester, protected by choice.
Sabrina Soffer is an alumna of George Washington University, a research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, and co-author of the forthcoming book, Of Good Courage: Israel and the West’s Fight for Moral Clarity, with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Dr. Yechiel Leiter. Follow on X: @sabrinasoff. Shabbos Kestenbaum is an alum of Harvard University and a Political Commentator at PragerU. Follow on X: @ShabbosK
