The Northwestern University and four other schools are being investigated by the US Education Department, which the federal agency has said “comprehensive antisementic harassment” after a large-scale student protests, which broke in the last spring against the Israeli-Hamas war. Was.
The Education Department said that it is starting its investigation under the title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents discrimination in programs or activities based on race, color or national origin – like universities – which federal financial assistance Receive.
“This investigation is based on the basic work of the workforce under the House Committee on Education and the then Chairman Virginia Foxx, which found that the university administration ‘administration’ to protect or support its Jewish students’, even to ‘fail’, even That the ‘anti -American, anti -American,’ the department said in a release.
When Israel announced war on Hamas after the group attack on 7 October 2023, college students across the country protested by establishing infiltration and walkout and protests. He demanded to divide his universities from companies that trade with Israel.
Several encroachments in colleges across Chicago were eventually demolished by the police, leaving lawn chairs and colored student artwork domination of campus quads. In the misconduct of Northwestern, in Daring Meadow, an agreement with students and faculty was taken into an agreement-a major American university and Palestinian are considered the first among the protesters.
In the agreement, Northwestern agreed to give two visits to Palestinian Faculty members each year and fund the scholarship for five Palestinian undergraduates for their graduate career. The school also agreed to renovate a community building for Use for Middle Eastern, North African and Muslim students as a gathering place.
However, some Jewish students of Northwestern said the protests entered the antisementism and feared them.
Northwestern’s Jewish Center Hilal stated that encroachment showed “a disturbing and quickly an antisementic rhetoric and the tendency of tasks at the national level and in his own premises.”
According to Hilal’s Executive Director Michael Simon at the university, the entire campus community has an important role in combating the antisemitism. Simon said in a statement on Tuesday that Hillal continued to work with Northwestern to ensure that the university is free from harassment, threats or threats.
Simon said in the statement, “We hope that along with other reforms and initiatives, along with this investigation, will continue to increase the climate of the campus for Jewish students in Northwestern.”
President Trump came to report the investigation after announcing aggressive action to fight antismitism on college complexes, “Hamas sympathizing”, promising to prosecute criminals and cancel the visa for international students. ”
For some people in the Chicago Jewish community, however, the investigation represents an attack against Palestinian students.
Rabbi Brant Rousn said, “This whole thing is really a very disturbing and disturbing tendency that we are seeing across the country to tighten the activation of Palestine using antisemiatiism weapons,” Rabbi Brent Rosen said, which is associated with the Jewish voice for peace, which works to promote solidarity between Palestinians and Israelis.
Universities must have a place to challenge public beliefs, Rosen believes.
“We should be uncomfortable. We all should be uncomfortable, but it is not the same as being insecure, and it is definitely not the same as antisemitism, ”he said.
David Goldenburg, the Midwest Regional Director of the Anti-Defection League, who works with students in Northwestern, said that even though there is no encroachment, those memories are still raw.
When the protests were taking place, he said, some Jewish students felt mentally and physically insecure. He said that he no longer needs to avoid the main green space of the protesters, but that his confidence and faith led by Northwestern have ended. He cited an annual National Survey ADL conducted on campus antisemitism, showing that Jewish College students do not feel confident of their universities to prevent antisemental events.
Goldenberg said, “Students look around and do not see transparent accountability.”
He inspired Northwestern to come up with individuals who have changed the rules and (ensure) a “non-reactive, long-term plan, which is permanent and … Break. ”
The Department of Education has also opened Title VI investigation at Columbia University, Portland State, University of California, Berkeley and Minnesota.