US Justice Department to investigate antisemitism at University of California
The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the University of California (UC) over concerns surrounding antisemitism at the institution.
The department says it plans to investigate whether UC's system has been discriminating against professors, staff and other employees who are Jewish by 'allowing an Antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses'.
The action was announced on Wednesday by the newly-formed "Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism", which was set up by the Department of Justice in February following Trump's executive order, "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism", signed at the end of January.
The Task Force announced last week it would visit ten university campuses which have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023, including three UC campuses: the University of California Los Angeles; the University of California Berkeley; and the University of Southern California.
The University of California is the world's largest public research university system, with ten campuses including UC Berkeley - which has been the site of several protest movements including the genesis of the Free Speech Movement in the US.
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"We were recently notified of the Department of Justice's decision to initiate a civil rights investigation in the UC system. We want to be clear: the UC is unwavering in its commitment to combating antisemitism and protecting everyone's civil rights. We continue to take specific steps to foster an environment free of harassment and discrimination for everyone in the university community," UC spokesperson Stett Holbrook told Middle East Eye on Wednesday.
Former Fox News commentator and UCLA alumni Leo Terrell, who is leading the task force, said in a press release that there had been "an outbreak of antisemitic incidents at leading institutions of higher education, including at my own alma mater at the UCLA campus of UC".
Attorney general Pamela Bondi, who was also quoted in the release, said, 'This Department of Justice will always defend Jewish Americans, protect civil rights, and leverage our resources to eradicate institutional Antisemitism in our nation's universities.'
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, national origin, sex, and religion. Under Title VII, the US Justice Department has the authority to initiate investigations against state and local government employers where it has reason to believe that a 'pattern or practice' of employment discrimination exists.
Other universities the task force will be targeting include George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota; and Columbia University.
Princeton University implicated in Gaza and Sudan wars, report says Read More »
Protests against Israel's war on Gaza swept through university campuses soon after the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have sought to characterise anti-Israel and anti-Zionist protests as "antisemitic", leading to congressional hearings grilling university administrators and law enforcement forcefully shutting down protests on campuses.
In the wake of the political backlash, universities like New York University and Harvard have scrambled to adopt the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism as they come under federal scrutiny.
On Monday, the federal task force announced it was considering halting more than $51.4m in federal contracts with Columbia University due to alleged campus antisemitism. The task force said it would also conduct a comprehensive review of more than $5bn in federal grant commitments to Columbia to ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.
Since coming into office, US President Donald Trump ordered a pause on federal grants and loans, which has since been blocked by a judge. The Associated Press reported in February that the Trump directive has universities nationwide "scrambling to determine how a funding freeze could affect their research programs, students and faculty".
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The bottom line of the whole sequence is that France has lost its diplomatic influence in the Middle East Since the 1960s, French diplomacy had followed the tradition of President Charles de Gaulle, whose cardinal rule was independence. After the 1967 war, Paris played a leading role in shaping a political solution to the conflict. It advocated for the self-determination of the Palestinian people, promoted the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as their representative, convinced PLO leader Yasser Arafat to opt out of the armed struggle and recognise Israel. However, since the end of the Cold War and the first war on Iraq in 1991, the US has taken the lead. Between hyper America and intransigent Israel, France, bound by a divided European diplomacy, has no leeway anymore. Since the 9/11 attack, most of the French political and media elite has fully endorsed the Israeli narrative and its endless 'war on terror'. Besides, the domestic obsession about 'Islamism' and immigration interferes more and more with France's Middle East policy. This 'Israelisation' of French politics reached a paroxysmal level after the attack of 7 October 2023. In such a framework, Macron's initiative was doomed to fail, as it is flawed by a total lack of understanding of the Palestinian experience and history, and by a denial of the colonial nature of the situation. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye
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Washington's participation in this conflict not only rode roughshod over Trump's promise to end costly American interventions abroad, but it also highlighted the continuing hold that Israel maintains over US policy in the Middle East. Despite Tel Aviv's boasts of air supremacy, and its stated desire to curtail Iran's offensive capabilities, Tehran remained able to launch devastating attacks against military targets in Israel. It also made a performative, symbolic strike against the American al-Udeid airbase in Qatar. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The triumphalist messaging from the US in the wake of its initial hits against Iran's nuclear sites has now been overshadowed by a frenzied debate over the relative success or failure of the strikes, and the whereabouts of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile. 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By attacking a non-nuclear-armed state, Israel and the US have massively increased incentive for other states to weaponise their own nuclear programmes Iran's nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed away, despite Israel's strategy of scholasticide. A further dangerous aspect is Trump's regular changes of direction, extreme even by his own highly capricious standards - with a seeming desire for negotiations being immediately followed by US attacks against nuclear facilities, before swinging back to diplomacy again. Running in parallel with confused statements about Washington's stance on regime change in Iran, this lack of direction makes it very difficult for Tehran to read the US president's true intentions. This makes calibrating a response even more precarious. Ultimately, two nuclear-armed powers might have violated international law to pre-emptively disable a perceived threat emanating from Iran's nuclear programme, despite intelligence estimates to the contrary. Concurrent hopes of somehow fomenting a viable domestic challenge to the Islamic Republic were also naive, and showed that regime change is not something that can be imposed under aerial bombardment. Domestic political polarisation and questions over the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic still exist within Iran, but expecting change to come through external military force shows a total lack of understanding of Iran's history and its people's response to foreign intervention. By allowing Israel to bomb Iran, Trump is pushing Tehran to go nuclear Read More » The Israeli-US action has created a world that is now far more insecure. These developments will increase calls within Iran to weaponise its nuclear programme as a deterrent against further action. By attacking a non-nuclear-armed state, Israel and the US have massively increased the proliferation risk, giving other states an incentive to weaponise their own nuclear programmes as a means of ensuring their survival. Having a nuclear deterrent has worked for Israel so far, whereas pursuing nuclear diplomacy has thus far not worked for Iran - so other states with nuclear ambitions will look to this moment to help shape their own decision-making. Finally, the weak, copy-pasted response by European states to Washington's entry into the conflict only further undermined the foundations of the 'rules-based order' they hold so dear. With their reputation for upholding this vision already in tatters over the double standards applied in relation to Ukraine and Gaza, their cowardly submission to US and Israeli 'security interests' further underlines both their hypocrisy and ineffectiveness. As the US and Israel pursue a 'might is right' strategy, their impunity trashes any sense of international norms or consensus, resulting in greater insecurity for all. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
