DOJ task force to visit Columbia, other colleges to investigate allegations of antisemitism
WASHINGTON - Columbia Harvard, NYU and seven other universities will get a visit from the Justice Department's antisemitism task force, which will investigate campuses that have become flashpoints since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.
The universities were told by the Trump administration they “may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination,” according to a statement.
The group plans to meet with university leadership, students, law enforcement, and community members and consider “whether remedial action is warranted.”
The ten universities include: Columbia University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California.
The visits come as pro-Palestinian students have held large demonstrations at universities protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. Last year, the New York Police Department arrested over 100 students at Columbia University after they set up encampments on campus.
The University of California, Irvine, faced a similar incident after pro-Palestinian protesters and police clashed, leading to the indefinite suspension of five students, according to WJLA-TV News.
And earlier this week, Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Barnard College in New York stormed an academic building and held an hours-long sit in. A school employee was physically assaulted and hospitalized during the incident. Two students at the same college were reportedly expelled last week after they disrupted a session of the class "History of Modern Israel."
Contributing: Savannah Kuchar, Paste BN