Anti-Defamation League gives UT a 'B' for campus climate, combatting antisemitism

Yahoo

04-03-2025

The University of Texas received the highest score among Texas universities and colleges analyzed in the Anti-Defamation League's 2025 campus antisemitism report card, which rates how schools with 'significant' Jewish student populations are successfully combatting antisemitism and how they are not.
In its second report card, the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based advocacy nonprofit fighting antisemitism and extremism, rated 135 higher education institutions across the U.S., including four in Texas, based on their administration and policies, Jewish life organizations, campus climate and conduct. Only eight received an 'A' grade.
The University of Texas at Austin received a B grade along with 40 other institutions. The campus has experienced multiple acts of antisemitic vandalism and graffiti, including during Jewish holidays, and a 'burning of an Israel flag outside a restaurant when Jewish fraternity members were inside in February 2024," the report said. But UT also has clear policies, strong Jewish community organizations and accountability for anti-Jewish harassment.
Texas A&M and Rice University received each received a C rating, and the University of Houston received a D, according to the report. Students at all four universities have reported antisemitic harassment to the ADL.
Jackie Nirenberg, the regional director for Austin's Anti-Defamation League, said the report is not punitive, but rather, it assesses how colleges are handling antisemitism and protecting Jewish students as students report record incidences of antisemitism.
"For the longest time Jewish students were really not seen as a group that could be discriminated against on campus. Things have changed quite a bit," Nirenberg said. "This has become an issue nationwide, and (it's) why ADL decided that it was time to sort of get a feel for what is going on college campuses, to protect Jewish students and to ensure that there are measures that are taken to make Jewish students feel belonging on campus."
Antisemitism has been rising in the U.S. by white supremacists, even before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in Israel, she said, but it skyrocketed in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war when advocacy against Israel, including at many universities across the country, became antisemitic or anti-Jewish at times. In September 2023 and incidents thereafter, Texas Hillel was vandalized with antisemitic epithets, and students have reported harassment and fear at UT in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
"Students are feeling pressure from both ends of the spectrum on this issue," Nirenberg said. "Which makes it a uniquely pressurized, highly pressurized situation for young people who are discovering who they are, launching their lives, developing socially and just feeling extremely uncomfortable.'
Nirenberg said the university has worked with Austin's ADL and other partners to create a safe environment for Jewish students over the last year and a half. The university's willingness to listen sets it apart, she said.
"UT just was extremely open to ideas, open to two-way communications, and very, very responsive," Nirenberg said. "That was really heartening, and they continue to do that."
ADL credited UT for disciplining two teaching assistants who sent a message offering support to Palestinian students but not to Jewish students on a university messaging platform after the Israel-Hamas war ignited, as well as for disciplining student protesters who violated campus rules when protesting the teaching assistants' job reassignments.
It also credits the university with its response to the pro-Palestinian encampment April 29, 2024, though it did not mention the April 24 demonstration in which dozens of people were arrested while protesting for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers contributing to the war in Gaza though an encampment was not formed.
Nirenberg said some Jewish students were afraid to go to class and the university's emphasis on safety helped reassure them.
"When things got really heated, they were very, very clear about what expectations they had vis a vie campus protests, and that clarity was not typical of a lot of other campuses across the nation," Nirenberg said. "This administration was really trying to maintain a very delicate balance between code of conduct and safety on campus and freedom of speech, which is not an easy task to do, but that safety was their No. 1 concern."
The ADL also found that UT protected Jewish students by defining antisemitism in its free speech policy and prevented pro-Palestinian students from delivering a letter to the president to divest from Israel, the report said.
In the future, Nirenberg said UT could implement centers for civil discourse and dialogue for students to safely voice their feelings about the war. Though pro-Palestinian organizers have said that their speech is not antisemitic, misunderstanding prevents people from understanding the affect of their words regardless of intent, Nirenberg said.
She said the report is an "awakening," and she hopes universities act to further protect Jewish students.
Antisemitism "was a new thing for so many people, and so many people also don't understand the Jewish lived experience. It's a very unique experience. It's cultural, it's religious. There's a tie to Israel that is very unique," Nirenberg said. "Not knowing what it means to live a Jewish life, it makes it difficult to recognize antisemitism and understand what it is."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: UT ranks best in Texas for protecting Jewish students, ADL says