Trump admin task force moves rapid­ly to pun­ish col­leges for inac­tion over anti­semitism

The recent can­ce­la­tion of $400 mil­lion in fed­er­al grants and con­tracts to Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s Joint Task Force to Com­bat Anti­semitism was seen as a major wake-up call to the coun­try’s uni­ver­si­ties.

In its press release, the task force announced that the “deci­sive action” is “a notice to every school and uni­ver­si­ty that receives fed­er­al dol­lars.”

Leo Ter­rell, leader of the Fed­er­al Task Force to Com­bat Anti­semitism and senior coun­sel to the assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al for civ­il rights, told Fox News Dig­i­tal that Colum­bia was an ini­tial tar­get for fund­ing cuts because the school has been “in my opin­ion, the worst of the worst when it comes to allow­ing this type of con­duct to take place and to con­tin­ue.”

Rab­bi Moshe Hauer, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Ortho­dox Union, told Fox News Dig­i­tal that “the more dra­mat­ic action that the [Trump] admin­is­tra­tion seems ready to take … seems to be the nec­es­sary approach for some­thing as urgent as what we have been fac­ing.” Hauer added that his com­mu­ni­ty has “a lot of hope.”

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Hauer added that recent protests at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and Barnard Col­lege “remind­ed us how alive the issue [of cam­pus anti­semitism] is.” 

Ter­rell said Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s exec­u­tive order direct­ing increased efforts to fight anti­semitism “set the tone for every sin­gle agency” involved in the task force, which includes the Depart­ments of Jus­tice, Edu­ca­tion, Health and Human Ser­vices, Home­land Secu­ri­ty and State, in addi­tion to the U.S. Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion and the FBI. Ter­rell said new­ly con­firmed Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Lin­da McMa­hon “is involved in this exten­sive­ly, per the direc­tive from [U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al] Pam Bon­di.” 

He says experts with­in his task force will be assess­ing schools based on about nine cri­te­ria to deter­mine whether they are ade­quate­ly pro­tect­ing Jew­ish stu­dents. In addi­tion to look­ing for evi­dence of hate crimes and exam­in­ing schools’ tax-exempt sta­tus, Ter­rell said the task force will search for vio­la­tions of Title VI and Title VII in the 1964 Civ­il Rights Act.

Title VI pro­tects Amer­i­cans who engage in pro­grams that receive fed­er­al funds from dis­crim­i­na­tion based upon race, col­or and nation­al ori­gin. For­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion used Title VI when the Depart­ment of Education’s Office for Civ­il Rights exam­ined hos­tile anti­se­mit­ic envi­ron­ments on K‑12 and col­lege cam­pus­es. Title VII pre­vents fed­er­al employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of race, reli­gion, sex or col­or.

The task force’s move at Colum­bia fol­lows weeks of protests at the uni­ver­si­ty and affil­i­at­ed Barnard Col­lege. In Jan­u­ary, stu­dents stormed a Colum­bia class­room and “alleged­ly threw around [fliers] filled with hate­ful speech.” The fol­low­ing month, more than 50 pro­test­ers took over a build­ing at Barnard Col­lege and were said to have assault­ed an employ­ee.

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Dur­ing a March 5 protest on Barnard’s cam­pus, pro­test­ers were pic­tured pass­ing out pam­phlets from the “Hamas media office,” in addi­tion to pic­tures of for­mer Hezbol­lah ter­ror chief Has­san Nas­ral­lah and stick­ers fea­tur­ing for­mer chair of the Hamas ter­ror orga­ni­za­tion Yahya Sin­war, accord­ing to the Times of Israel. In a press release, Colum­bia con­firmed that four of its stu­dents were arrest­ed dur­ing the Barnard “dis­rup­tion.” The stu­dents were sub­se­quent­ly “sus­pend­ed and restrict­ed from cam­pus.”

The sit­u­a­tion at Colum­bia has grown more com­plex after for­mer stu­dent Mah­moud Khalil was arrest­ed by U.S. Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) for alleged­ly advo­cat­ing for Hamas. Ter­rell said Khalil’s arrest was not con­duct­ed at the behest of the task force but explained that “all of this is com­ing out of the Trump exec­u­tive order.” 

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A Colum­bia rep­re­sen­ta­tive did not respond to ques­tions from Fox News Dig­i­tal about the can­cel­la­tion of its grants, its pos­ture toward ICE on cam­pus or whether it plans to con­tin­ue employ­ing anti-Israel pro­fes­sors who are accused of spread­ing anti­se­mit­ic views. 

Columbia’s inter­im pres­i­dent, Kat­ri­na Arm­strong, released a state­ment on March 7 in which she said “Colum­bia is tak­ing the government’s action very seri­ous­ly.” Arm­strong sought to “assure the entire Colum­bia com­mu­ni­ty that we are com­mit­ted to work­ing with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to address their legit­i­mate con­cerns. To that end, Colum­bia can, and will, con­tin­ue to take seri­ous action toward com­bat­ting anti­semitism on our cam­pus. This is our num­ber one pri­or­i­ty.”

When it comes to demon­strat­ing their effec­tive efforts to com­bat anti­semitism, Ter­rell said schools must “earn trust.” Cit­ing as an exam­ple “the lit­tle fee­ble action” Colum­bia has tak­en in response to fund­ing cuts, Ter­rell asked, “Is it the mon­ey dri­ving them or their con­cern for Jew­ish-Amer­i­can stu­dents?” 

Ter­rell also said there will be no spe­cial rewards for schools that have man­aged anti­semitism with­out fed­er­al involve­ment.

“They have a fun­da­men­tal right to pro­tect Jew­ish Amer­i­cans and Jew­ish stu­dents,” he said.