Published by The Chronicle of Higher Education on 1/29/2026 When Brown University agreed last summer to administer a campuswide survey as part of a deal with the Trump administration, federal officials made clear what they wanted measured: whether students of Jewish ancestry felt unsafe, harassed, or marginalized on campus. The results, released this week to the campus community, tell a more complicated story. While some Jewish students reported experiences of harassment and discrimination, students with the lowest confidence in Brown’s ability to protect them — and the greatest discomfort reporting bias — were primarily Muslim and Black students, along with other marginalized groups, including LGBTQ and nonbinary students. Brian Clark, a Brown spokesperson, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that the survey results, along with proposed actions, were submitted to federal officials for review. The full report has not been released publicly, as it “constitutes Brown’s analysis while we await a comprehensive review from our external vendor,” Clark said via email. A more detailed report is expected later this spring. The Chronicle obtained a copy of the preliminary findings from a member of the Brown community. Completed last fall by 57 percent of undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, the survey found that most students feel they belong at Brown and can succeed academically without suppressing their identities. Nearly 85 percent of undergraduates and 76 percent of graduate and medical students reported a sense of belonging, and over 90 percent of undergraduates said they would recommend Brown to “students like me.” Beneath those topline results, however, disparities emerge. Muslim undergraduates, Black or African American and trans or nonbinary students at all education levels, and Hispanic and multiracial graduate and medical students, reported rates of harassment and discrimination exceeding 15 percent. Jewish undergraduate students also reported levels exceeding 11 percent. (The report notes that rates of harassment and discrimination that exceed 10 percent require focused attention.) Fewer than half of Muslim undergraduates said they would feel comfortable reporting Islamophobia or religious discrimination, compared with nearly 74 percent of undergraduates over all. Black students also reported lower confidence that Brown takes racism seriously or responds appropriately. Jewish undergraduates were slightly less likely than their peers to say they would feel comfortable reporting antisemitism. Most students agree or strongly agree that Brown takes antisemitism and racism seriously and responds appropriately, though a smaller majority believe the university addresses Islamophobia with the same rigor. These disparities are significant in the context of the survey’s political backdrop. Brown conducted the survey under a July 2025 agreement with the Trump administration that restored hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal research funding and resolved a federal investigation into an alleged failure to combat antisemitism on campus. As part of the deal, the university was required to assess the campus climate for students of Jewish ancestry, as well as social-media harassment, and submit the results, along with a plan of action, to federal officials. The plan includes expanding the Office of Equity Compliance and Reporting, broadening the university’s nondiscrimination training, increasing training around social-media harassment and discrimination, and launching a classroom-based dialogue initiative next fall to prioritize “open dialogue in the curriculum.” Clark said the university incorporated input from the federal government when designing the survey, which was conducted by the external firm Rankin Climate. Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish advocacy organization, said the findings concerning Jewish students mirror patterns her organization sees nationwide. Katz-Prober, whose organization supported the federal government requiring the survey as part of its agreement with Brown, said collecting the data should be a starting point, not an endpoint, for the university. She said the elevated reports of harassment and lower confidence among Muslim, Black, and other marginalized students do not undermine the survey’s focus on antisemitism. “Harassment and discrimination shouldn’t be a zero-sum game,” she said, adding that when universities enforce nondiscrimination policies consistently, “all students benefit.” The university will conduct an employee climate survey in the fall of 2026.