Trump’s Campus Crackdown Reaches Far Beyond Ivy League Schools
Washington’s scrutiny of alleged antisemitism extends past big-name elites to state schools and small colleges
At least 60 universities across the country, some of them state schools like Eastern Washington University and Ohio State, are under investigation by the Education Department for alleged antisemitism. The task force that’s taken on Harvard and Columbia has publicly named eight other targets. And additional schools are being singled out by Republicans aligned with White House priorities.
“This is very much a widespread issue,” said Audra McGeorge, a spokeswoman for a House committee holding a May hearing over campus antisemitism concerns, featuring the presidents of Haverford College, DePaul University and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. McGeorge said they sought schools not already on the radar by the federal administration, with a mix of size and geographies.
Trump’s attacks on elite schools like Harvard and Columbia—using cuts to federal funding as a lever—are part of a larger campaign. He and allies portray campuses nationwide as hotbeds of left-wing ideology, linking it to antisemitism. Conservatives also aim broadly to end racial preferences in admissions and hiring.
The pressure is building from across the administration. At Brown University, civil-rights lawyers from Health and Human Services told the school this month they’d be conducting interviews as part of a sweeping look at campus antisemitism that started as a probe into a protest outside last year’s medical-school graduation.
In Congress, the House Committee on Education and Workforce examining Cal Poly, Haverford and DePaul is the same one that grilled the Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania presidents in late 2023 over their responses to demonstrations against the war in Gaza that roiled campuses. Those hearings helped fell the leaders of Harvard and Penn.
Each of the three new schools received an “F” on an antisemitism report card from the Anti-Defamation League over the level of incidents on campus and the university response. Cal Poly got upgraded to a “D” this month after forming an antisemitism task force.
Representatives for all three schools shared steps they’ve taken to improve the campus climate and said their presidents appreciate the opportunity to discuss the issues with Congress. Some on the campuses say the criticism is unwarranted or that they fear Jewish issues are being exploited for political gain.
“It was really surprising hearing Cal Poly would be on this national stage when it really didn’t feel like it reflected our lived experiences,” said Stephanie Sussman, a fourth-year Jewish student at the heavily agriculture and engineering-focused public school on California’s central coast. Jewish students have vibrant clubs and organizations on campus and near-daily events, Sussman said.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, two protests at Cal Poly have led to arrests, including one that turned violent outside a career fair. The university responded quickly to reports of vandalism last Halloween, said Avi Shapiro, a fourth-year Jewish student.
Shapiro said he and other students are meeting with Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong before the congressional hearing to share their positive experiences with campus Jewish life. “We want an accurate reflection of Cal Poly,” he said.
At DePaul, a private Catholic research university in Chicago, students maintained a 17-day pro-Palestinian encampment last spring. Protesters and counterprotesters clashed repeatedly. Police cleared the site, arresting two people for blocking traffic.
Last November, two Jewish students were attacked by masked assailants during a discussion about the war in Gaza outside the student center. Authorities recently charged one man with assault and hate crimes in connection with that.
“There is very real antisemitism at DePaul,” said Craig Klugman, a bioethicist and medical anthropologist who advises the school’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel. He said transgressions include faculty encouraging students to attend pro-Palestinian demonstrations and holding meetings on Jewish holidays.
Overall, he said, the school had done a good job of listening to the concerns of Jewish students and faculty amid last year’s protests and suspended the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter this academic year.
He believes the Trump administration’s approach could backfire.
“They are using Jewish issues and antisemitism as a way to further their own agenda,” Klugman said. “We are going to get blamed for anything they do.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
While Haverford, a small liberal-arts college outside Philadelphia, had an encampment, some of the most tense clashes over the Gaza war occurred online, said Naomi Koltun-Fromm, chair of the school’s department of religion, who is Jewish.
“For faculty, it wasn’t necessarily in your face all the time, but for students, it was because it was their social group,” she said.
This year, the mood is different, she said, with many students moving on and learning how to live with each other again. “So to be relitigating all this now isn’t going to help anything,” she added.
Barak Mendelsohn, a political-science professor who served in the Israel Defense Forces, said Haverford has an antisemitism problem the administration has refused to fully acknowledge.
“Me and many of my Jewish colleagues here are actually very happy to see these kinds of hearings because these small liberal-arts colleges somehow manage to fly under the radar,” he said. “Somebody needs to hold them accountable.”
Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com and Joe Barrett at Joseph.Barrett@wsj.com