Media Coverage

Published by The Boston Globe on 4/15/2025 As Harvard University prepares for a titanic showdown with the Trump administration over its academic independence, the president on Tuesday threatened the school’s tax exempt status while the first effects of a $2 billion freeze in federal funding began to be felt on campus. Others also argued that […]

Published by The New York Times on 4/15/2025 Late last week, officials at Harvard University were trying to decipher what the Trump administration wanted the school to do to combat antisemitism. The government had made some straightforward demands, like requiring the school to ban masks, which are often favored by protesters. But other demands seemed […]

Published by KQED on 4/14/2025 Swastika graffiti in a campus bathroom, chants of “death to Jews,” Hamas Hello Kitty stickers and the physical assault of Jewish students. These are among the incidents detailed in discrimination complaints against California universities since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Now, at least 17 colleges in the state are in […]

Published by The Wall Street Journal on 4/14/2025 Columbia University’s president had already been hounded out of office, but her ordeal wasn’t over. Four days after she stepped down under government pressure during fraught federal funding negotiations, Katrina Armstrong spent three hours being deposed by a government attorney in Washington, D.C. The lawyer grilled Armstrong over whether she had […]

Published by JWeekly on 4/4/2025 The legal team suing UC Berkeley over antisemitism claims in federal court marked two intermediate wins over the past week, according to one of its top attorneys. Willkie Farr & Gallagher, a prestigious law firm with offices worldwide that counts former second gentleman Doug Emhoff among its partners, joined the team representing […]

Published by The Hill on 4/2/2025 A district judge ruled Monday that an antisemitism lawsuit accusing the University of California, Berkeley of inaction regarding harassment of Jewish students can proceed.  District Judge James Donato in a 5-page ruling said the suit alleging the university violated the civil rights and equal protection rights of Jewish students could move forward. “Taken […]

Published by Bloomberg Law on 4/2/2025 Jewish groups’ allegations that the University of California, Berkeley, its law school, and other defendants discriminated against Jewish students and professors were trimmed by a federal court. The institutions must defend against claims that they violated the groups’ equal protection and free exercise rights, as well as Title VI […]

Published by Reuters on 4/2/2025 April 2 (Reuters) – A federal judge said Jewish groups may pursue a lawsuit accusing the University of California, Berkeley, of tolerating an “unrelenting” stream of antisemitic harassment toward Jewish students and faculty. In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Donato said two Jewish groups may […]

Published by Jewish Insider on 03/21/2025 Just hours before President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education, the department’s Office for Civil Rights opened its latest batch of antisemitism investigations into several universities. Jewish legal and education experts were left divided over how the […]

Published by JNS on 03/20/2025 (March 20, 2025 / JNS) U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin eliminating the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday in the administration’s latest effort to slash the size of government. Trump announced that half of the employees of the 4,200-person department had accepted buyouts to leave their […]

Published by EdSource on 03/11/2025 Thirty-one legislators, led by the Legislative Jewish Caucus, are calling for a do-over on teaching ethnic studies after a half-dozen years of strife. The authors are convinced that flaws in a voluntary model curriculum have led to complaints and lawsuits alleging that some districts are using biased and antisemitic course […]

Published by JNS on 03/10/2025 The Anti-Defamation League, Jewish on Campus, StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed complaints earlier this month with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that three California schools—Scripps College, Etiwanda Intermediate School and California State Polytechnic, Humboldt—violated the civil rights of Jews and Israelis. Students at […]

Published by JNS on 3/19/2025 This column has been adapted from a March 3 speech by Alyza D. Lewin at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. Four years after Dr. Benjamin Rush founded Dickinson College, he attended a Jewish wedding. It was the wedding of Rachel Phillips to Michael Levy, held in Philadelphia in June 1787. […]

Published by The Chronicle of Higher Education on 03/04/2025 The Trump administration has sent its first notice to a college that it may take away federal funding. A new federal task force on antisemitism will review more than $5 billion that Columbia University receives from the government, and will immediately consider imposing stop-work orders on […]

Published by Inside Higher Education on 03/07/2025 The Trump administration announced Friday that it’s cutting $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University as a result of what Republican officials say is “continued inaction” and failure to protect Jewish students at the Ivy League institution. The accusations were made in a joint news release from the Departments […]

Published by the The Washington Post on 03/07/2025 The Trump administration said Friday it was cutting off about $400 million in federal contracts and grants to Columbia University, saying the school has failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism on campus. The administration took action just four days after announcing that several federal agencies were investigating Columbia. The school has been in the spotlight since last academic year when pro-Palestinian protesters […]

Published by the Jewish Press on 03/04/2025 On October 26, 2024, Jonathan Hirsch and his five-year-old son entered the Jerusalem Coffee House, owned by Abdulrahim Harara, after dining at a nearby restaurant, Casper’s. After the meal, Hirsch’s son needed to use the restroom, but Casper’s did not offer such facilities to customers and directed them […]

Published by the San Francisco Standard on 03/03/2025 An Oakland man is suing a Palestinian-owned coffee shop, alleging he was thrown out for wearing a baseball cap featuring a Jewish star, in a confrontation that went viral in October. The lawsuit, filed by Jonathan Hirsch in Alameda County, accuses Oakland’s Jerusalem Coffee House of religious discrimination and […]