Published by the Washington Post on 7/24/25 In 2021, future vice president JD Vance delivered a speech titled “The Universities Are the Enemy.” A few years later, during his campaign, Donald Trump called college leaders “Marxist maniacs.” Now their administration is using the full force of the federal government to investigate long-standing conservative complaints about universities, making sweeping demands and cutting billions of dollars in federal funding as it works to bring campuses to heel. The most powerful vehicle for the onslaught has been theJoint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. The administration established the task force in February to counter what it describes as widespread failure by universities to protect Jewish students since the start of campus protests against the Israel-Gaza war. In reality, many of the task force’s unprecedented demands and punishments have nothing to do with antisemitism. Instead, they seek hiring and programming changes to strip long-standing conservative targets including DEI and a liberal worldview from higher education. A White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the task force began by focusing on antisemitism but described antisemitism as only “the symptom” of a broken and corrupt culture on college campuses “and not the disease.” The official said the same campus culture that labels Jews as oppressors also isolates White students in favor of promoting racial minorities. That assertion was echoed by several administration officials and some conservative Jewish leaders. The administration’s critics, including some Jewish leaders and groups, say stripping diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from colleges won’t prevent antisemitism, and predict the task force’s tactics will prompt a backlash. The administration is using antisemitism investigations as a pretext to pursue an unrelated conservative agenda, they argue. “It’s self-evident it’s not about antisemitism,” said Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research and educational center focused on world Jewish life and pluralism. “Why would that have anything to do with cutting funding for research? It’s about conservative fears of higher education, and antisemitism is an excuse.” These issues are set for a high-profile public airing next week in a federal court in Boston. Attorneys for Harvard and the Trump administration are scheduled to face off in a pivotal hearing in a lawsuit the university filed in an attempt to reverse federal funding cuts. This account of the antisemitism task force’s mission and tactics is based on interviews with 40administration officials, administration allies, university officials and others familiar with the task force’s work. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution for speaking without authorization. White House spokesman Harrison Fields said fighting antisemitism and DEI are both administration priorities. “The suggestion that the Administration is weaponizing the fight against antisemitism to implement commonsense policies to end DEI is outrageous and baseless,” he said in a statement. He said both efforts are “fully aligned with upholding federal law, which these practices clearly violate.” From antisemitism to DEI The Trump administration’s rhetorical, administrative and financial attack on higher education is like none other since the federal government ramped up funding to universities in the aftermath of World War II. The work — which at times has ignored legal norms and procedures — is driven by the task force, made up of senior officials in the Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services departments, as well as the little-known General Services Administration. Since almost the start of Trump’s second term, they have invoked both antisemitism and DEI in a quest to transform the culture of campuses and stamp out what many Republicans see as outright hostility to conservative values, discourse and thought. For supporters, DEI is a way to ensure that all types of people — regardless of race, gender and other factors — are represented and feel included and that institutions address structural barriers that may prevent equal opportunity. But critics — including many conservatives — say DEI divides people based on identity, leads to discrimination based on race and gender and ignores merit in favor of quotas. One task force membersaid it makes sense to create a “global settlement” with universities that would encompass a range of alleged violations. Task force investigations sometimes start out examining allegations of antisemitism, this person said, but then identify what members see as other concerns, such as race-conscious admissions, which the Supreme Court has ruled are unconstitutional. Now, even as Harvard fights the Trump administration in court, the administration’s hard-edged approach is paying dividends, with schools including Harvard and Columbia — the two biggest targets — agreeing to some government demands, and as Columbia negotiates with the White House over a possible agreement. In interviews, several administration officials argued that antisemitism and DEI are inextricably linked and said the task force’s mandate is widely understood internally to include both issues. They argued that both are rooted in racism and that both violate civil rights law. “History has shown that antisemitism is oftentimes the canary in the coal mine for deeper civil rights issues,” said Josh Gruenbaum, a Trump appointee who is commissioner of the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service and a member of the task force. At one White House meeting, a senior Justice Department official compared the people behind campus antisemitism to protesters inliberal movements such as Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, attendees said. After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and Israel responded with a deadly incursion into Gaza, large-scale pro-Palestinian protests erupted on many college campuses. Some Jewish students said certain actions and rhetoric amounted to antisemitism, and colleges faced a challenge balancing the free speech rights of protesters against those concerns. Protests were particularly intense and divisive in the 2023-2024 school year, and some Jewish students reported being frightened by the language demonstrators used and being excluded from clubs on campus. While many protests were peaceful, some demonstrators celebrated the Oct. 7 attack, handed out fliers promoting Hamas, and spray-painted target symbols and death threats. At Columbia, a class about Israel was disrupted by protesters, the protest encampments barred “Zionists” from entering, and a Jewish student just outside the school gates reported being punched in the face. A survey last fall by the American Jewish Committee of current and recent Jewish college students found about 1 in 3 reported experiencing antisemitism during their time as a student, and nearly as many said they felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event at least once because of their Jewish identity. Soon after taking office, the Trump administration ordered schools to adopt stronger policies on protests and enforce them, ban masks on campus, and change academic programs that deal with the Middle East. But the task force also demanded a wide range of changes related to DEI and race. Among them: changes to admissions, closing DEI offices and altering hiring practices. To push colleges to comply, the administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding to at least six highly selective universities — notably Harvard and Columbia, which have seen the highest-profile federal cuts — but also Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and Princeton. Officials also wrote to 60 schools in March to warn that they might be subject to “enforcement actions” based on their responses to antisemitism, though more than 20 of them have heard nothing from the administration since then, according to a Washington Post survey. One targeted school, Brown University, said its funding was cut without “any formal notification or explanation” from the federal government and “in spite of Brown’s cooperation with multiple government reviews and our compliance with the law.” This mishmash of enforcement has frightened universities across the country. Government attorneys are using well-established processes to investigate some complaints against universities. But in other cases, political appointees are directing and announcing punishments and demands before schools have a chance to respond to the allegations and before the administration attempts to negotiate an agreement, as civil rights law directs. Some penaltiesare being challenged in court. But Columbia has agreed toa number of changes demanded by the administration — including a review of its admissions process — in hopes of seeing $400 million in federal fundingrestored, though many of those changes were already in the works. At Harvard, talks are ongoing about creating a “pluralism hub” to promote viewpoint diversity — a response to the conservative critique of overly liberal faculties.In April, Harvard renamed its Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging; it is now called Community and Campus Life. Other universities are also making changes in line with administration priorities, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. “What we’ve seen, since we really began this effort, you know, it was kind of a hard hammer at first,” she said at an event in June hosted by Bloomberg News. “And so we’ve now seen a lot of other universities who are starting to look at their practices and their programs and getting ahead of the curve so that they can report back.” A task force unlike any other The task force was created on Feb. 3, days after Trump signed an executive order directing “additional measures to combat antisemitism.” Operated out of the Justice Department, its members ultimately report to the White House, a White House official said, with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller playing an oversight role. The public face is Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney who left his job as a Fox News contributor to take a senior position in Trump’s Justice Department. Republicans refer to him as “Leo 2.0” — an affectionate nod to his political transformation from Democrat to Trump supporter. Terrell posts on social media throughout the day, echoing some of the right’s most incendiary and baseless claims. He also rails against diversity, equity and inclusion, often simply posting “I hate DEI” and tagging people of color with whom he disagrees as DEI hires. He’s also echoed antisemitic comments, such as when he shared a post on X by the then-head of Identity Evropa, which later changed its name to American Identity Movement, a now-defunct group that the Anti-Defamation League dubbed a white-supremacist organization. The post suggested that Trump “revoke” Sen. Charles E. Schumer’s “Jew card” because of his views on the conflict in Israel. Multiple people said Terrell has little experience in the type of legal work the task force is undertaking and is not involved in its day-to-day legal strategy. He acts as a messenger sometimes, they said, sending directives from the White House and updating Trump officials on the group’s work. He has been eager to sit down with conservative Jewish leaders, people who have met with him said. But he hasn’t met with groups that represent larger shares of the Jewish community, such as the Union for Reform Judaism, the association representing the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S., the group said. The American Jewish Committee waited months to get a meeting, officials said. Terrelldeclined multiple interview requests.A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment on Terrell’s role and actions. Much of the task force’s work is being shepherded by lower-profile senior administration officials: Tom Wheeler and Sean Keveney, the acting general counsels of the departments of Education and Health and Human Services, and Gruenbaum from the General Services Administration, according to two task force members. Harmeet Dhillon directly oversees the group’s work as head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. The Education and Justice departments have long been involved in enforcing civil rights laws on campuses. Involving HHS and GSA in investigations is a newer approach that has given the administration a powerful stick. HHS controls many of the federal grants on which universities depend. GSA, as the federal government’s central procurement agency, has a deep understanding of data on grants and contracts to the universities across agencies. It’s not the only novel strategy the task force is deploying. Typically, government lawyers and investigators who are not political appointees lead the process of collecting evidence and decide whether there is cause to launch an investigation, avoiding public announcements in case there is no finding of wrongdoing. Dhillon and her political team scour social media to identify instances of antisemitism and determine what investigations to launch. They often speak and post about some of those efforts publicly. The administration has also deployed the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to try to prevent Harvard from enrolling foreign students, a move blocked so farby a federal court. And a May letter to Harvard signed by the usually measured and diplomatic McMahon was written in the style of Trump. It was strewn with all-caps words, insults and exclamation points. “Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” the letter said. Another letter, from the task force to Harvard, included a litany of demands that had little to do with resolving allegations of antisemitism, as well as some that did relate. It demanded that Harvard cease alleged racial hiring and admissions preferences, shutter all DEI initiatives, and conduct an audit to assure “viewpoint diversity” in the student body, faculty, staff and leadership, as well as in every department, field and teaching unit. The letter was sent in error, according to two people familiar with the situation. Still, administration officials stood behind it. Harvard refused to comply, and within hours, the first funding freeze hit. Harvard then responded with its lawsuit. Ignoring legal procedures The legal basis for the crackdown on universities centers on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs or activities — including universities — that receive federal funding. That includes discrimination based on shared national ancestry, such as Jewish heritage. By law, the government is supposed to investigate complaints and, if they are substantiated, give the university an opportunity to come into compliance. Typically, the institution will negotiate an agreement, which might include policy changes and monitoring by the government. If talks fail, the government can take the case to court, where a judge would consider whether funding should be denied. “The statutes and regulations set out a really careful process the government is supposed to follow,” said Shaheena Simons, who worked as a civil rights attorney at the Justice Department for 17 years, including nine as head of the educational opportunities section. Under the law, she said, “withdrawal of federal funds is treated as a last resort action.” In several high-profile cases, the Trump task force has skipped all these steps. For instance, it announced an investigation into actions of Columbia University on March 3. Four days later, it froze $400 million in federal grants and contracts. There is also no indication that the administration investigated Harvard before freezing about $2.5 billion in funding, declaringthe university would no longer receive any future federal funding and attempting to bar foreign students from enrolling in the school. “The speed with which they are putting out these so-called findings suggests these are not bona fide investigations,” Simons said. “Legitimate investigations take time.” McMahon defended the task force’s approach, saying the violations were obvious from news reports of pro-Palestinian protests against the Israel-Gaza war on college campuses last year. “If you watched on television … students really were attacked. Professors were attacked. There was an action that needed to be taken,” she said at the Bloomberg event. In legal filings in Harvard’s lawsuit, the Trump administration has said that it had not canceled contracts because of violations to civil rights law — even though officials repeatedly invoke these laws in rebuking universities. Rather, the administration said, it canceled contracts for “policy purposes,” explaining that the “policy purpose is to not fund institutions that fail to address antisemitism.” The courts will decide whether it is legal to pull funding without a formal investigation, negotiation and court finding, said Kenneth L. Marcus, who headed the Education Department’s civil rights office during the first Trump administration and is founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which works to combat antisemitism. Marcus welcomed the administration’s approach as an overdue and aggressive response to what he sees as dangerous levels of antisemitism. But he agreed that the administration is jettisoning procedures established in law that he followed when in government. “The Trump administration is really saying they’re not going to use the same procedures used by prior administrations because we have an exceptional circumstance here,” he said. “That is an assertion that would have to be litigated in the courts.” Some of the administration’s threats have yet to materialize. In February, the task force promised to visit 10 schools that have experienced antisemitism and meet with a wide range of people in the campus community to investigate the incidents. But four of those schools said no visits have been requested. (Four universities declined to comment, and two did not respond to requests for comment.) George Washington University, for instance, located one mile from the White House, has publicly said it responded to the notification by asking how the schoolcould prepare for a visit, but school officials said they have not yet heard from the administration. Many schools are unsure of the status of their investigations after hearing little or nothing from the administration, said Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. He said one reason might be the gutting of staff at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, including closing seven of 12 regional offices. Beyond that, he suggested the administration appears more interested in drawing public attention than using established procedures to investigate and prove its cases. “What’s very, very clear is that they’re not really putting the resources into the processes that are dictated in law, that people understand, that lead to actual resolutions that improve the situations,” Fansmith said. “They’re putting a lot of time and resources into things that grab attention and that they can use for headlines, but without any sort of follow-up or implementation.” From antisemitism to gun rights The administration’s broad view of the relationship between antisemitism and DEI was on display at a private White House meeting for Jewish leaders in early June, which followed a brutal attack on demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, who were calling for a release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Top Trump administration officials including Dhillon and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles spoke to the group. Dhillon repeatedly connected fighting antisemitism to other conservative causes, according to two people at the event. She said the attack showed why Americans need expanded gun rights, these people said. And she compared people guilty of antisemitism to those involved in movements including Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and antifa, saying all are ideologically aligned with Marxism. Some guests said they took that comment to mean there was antisemitism in those movements, too, and the spread of antisemitism on college campuses is the natural progression. Others left confused about the task force’s true purpose. In interviews, administration officials disagreed about whether the task force was always meant to address a wide swath of issues or whether it morphed in that direction, but they agreed that the mission extends beyond whether colleges have protected Jews on campus. “The original version of it was just antisemitism,” a White House official said. “But practically, the antisemitism task force ends up folding in a lot of other conversations.” Critics are skeptical, noting that Trump has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric himself. This month, for instance, he used an antisemitic slur while referencing unscrupulous bankers. In November 2022, he had dinner with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who has made anti-Jewish remarks, and Nick Fuentes, an antisemite and white nationalist who has called Republicans who work with Jewish people “race traitors.” Trump replied that he didn’t know the comment about bankers was considered antisemitic. As for the dinner, he said at the time that he “never met and knew nothing about” Fuentes before he arrived with Ye at his club. He wrote that Ye “expressed no anti-Semitism” at the dinner. At a congressional hearing in June, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) said Trump would not associate with antisemites if he was committed to eradicating anti-Jewish bias. “Seizing control of college student admissions, faculty hiring and curricular content at colleges and universities has nothing to do with protecting Jewish students,” Raskin said. Many Jewish leaders say they are concerned about DEI programs that have divided the world into “oppressed” and “oppressors,” with Jews cast as oppressors despite antisemitism that has persisted over centuries. In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, some universities had “systemic blind spots” about the antisemitism that Jewish students were encountering, and DEI initiatives might have contributed, said Pamela Nadell, director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University and author of a forthcoming book on antisemitism. But she said the answer is to widen the definition of DEI to include Jews, not to eliminate DEI. “Ultimately, I am deeply worried that under the pretext of ending hatred of Jewish people — an historic, worldwide problem — the antisemitism task force’s demands to dismantle DEI as the root of antisemitism will further isolate Jews in American colleges and universities,” she said. “Jews will be blamed for its abolition. But antisemitism will not disappear from the campus.”