Federal Report Finds Jewish Students’ Civil Rights Were Systematically Violated at Columbia University

A new report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reports that Columbia University violated civil rights law by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward harassment against Jewish students. This is the Trump administration’s latest accusation of anti-Semitism against the school.

As was widely reported at the time, Columbia — and many other universities — were ground zero of pro-Hamas protests, and thousands of Jewish students at these colleges have reported anti-Semitic harassment and assaults, to a blind eye and deaf ear: college administrators.

Over the past few months, the Trump Administration targeted Columbia University and suspended more than $400 million in grants and contracts. In March, Columbia agreed to the government’s demands to, among other things to overhaul disciplinary processes, ban masks at protests, add 36 officers with the authority to make arrests.

The release of the report on Thursday didn’t cause the administration from enacting new action against Columbia, one of the nation’s most prominent Ivy League universities. The finding of a civil rights violation often precedes consequences.

Within hours prior to the release of the report, the Trump administration barred Harvard University from enrolling international students by terminating Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification. This means it can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.

The OCR report found that Columbia University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) by acting with deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment of Jewish students over the past 19 months.

“The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” said Anthony Archeval, Acting Director of the OCR at the HHS. “We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students.”

The OCR at the HHS enforces Title VI, which prohibits a recipient of Federal financial assistance from discriminating in its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, or national origin — which includes discrimination against individuals that is based on their actual or perceived Israeli or Jewish identity or ancestry. In this case itis tasked with providing health-related federal funding.

OCR’s Notice of Violation, jointly signed by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, “articulates extensive factual findings that span a period of over 19 months in which the University continually failed to protect Jewish students.”

The Notice of Violation comprehensively explains the ways in which Columbia University acted with deliberate indifference with regard to the hostile environment created by some of its students.

The HHS says the University failed:

• To establish effective reporting and remediation mechanisms for anti-Semitism until the summer of 2024,
• To properly abide by its own policies and procedures when responding to Jewish students’ complaints,
• To abide by its only policies and procedures governing student misconduct against Jewish students,
• To investigate or punish vandalism in its classrooms, which include the repeated drawing of swastikas and other universally recognized hate images, and
• To enforce its time, place, and manner restrictions for protests held on campus, such as inside and around its academic buildings, residence halls, and libraries since October 7, 2023.

The HHS says the findings “were based on information and documents obtained during the investigation, which include witness interviews; examination of written policies and procedures; reliable media reports that contemporaneously capture anti-Semitic incidents and events at Columbia University; and reports from Columbia University’s own Task Force on Anti-Semitism.”

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