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Penn. “Disturbing and unconstitutional.” That’s the gist of the University of Pennsylvania’s legal brief refusing to comply
with an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission subpoena that requested information about Jewish students, faculty and campus groups. While the EEOC claims that the list of Jews would help look into antisemitism complaints at Penn, the school says that the effort has “engendered fear and opposition across Penn’s Jewish community.” Indeed, leaders of Jewish campus groups at Penn including Hillel and Chabad have filed declarations
supporting the university’s refusal to comply, and
ADL and a coalition of other organizations did so as well, noting that “History has taught us to be vigilant when governments compile lists of people based on religious identity.”
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UC Santa Barbara. Tessa Veksler, a Jewish former president of the student body at the University of California, Santa Barbara is suing the school and its Board of Regents
for failing to protect her from abuse and discrimination. The lawsuit notes a number of ugly incidents targeting her, including a sign put up in a student center that said “You can run but you can’t hide, Tessa Veksler!” The complaint also cited other incidents of threats, vandalism and doxxing, and asserted that “UCSB refused to assist Tessa in protecting herself from these ongoing attacks and harassment, choosing instead to leave her to face the antisemitic mob alone — and increasingly vulnerable — for months on end.”
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(Source: Image courtesy Tessa Veksler) |
TAKE ACTION: Have you or your family experienced antisemitism? ADL Legal Action Network is designed to provide victims of antisemitism and extremism with access to legal services.
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UC Irvine. Student government leaders at the University of California, Irvine unanimously passed a Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution — after removing much of its substantive content including references to modern antisemitism, Holocaust denial and the resolution’s Jewish student authorship and sponsoring Jewish organizations. Jewish
campus groups — who spoke out when the senate removed them from the process — said the amendments hollowed out the resolution’s educational purpose and erased Jewish voices despite their explicit objections. Matt Friedman, ADL’s Orange County/Long Beach Regional Director,
said
the student government “bears responsibility for this failure and must take immediate steps to acknowledge the harm” and that ADL is also grateful to UC Irvine’s administration for sharing the original resolution campus-wide, recognizing International Holocaust Remembrance Day and sharing key Jewish educational resources addressing both the Holocaust and modern antisemitism.
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Ohio State. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the right day to recap a recent Ohio State Hillel student trip,
where, as one student described it, “On the same day we visited these death camps, we were able to celebrate Shabbat and our identity as proud Jews.” At a time when Jews can be marginalized or harassed on campus for their identity, these students deepened their connections to each other and their community. Another student reflected on the importance of their heritage, saying: “This future should have been theirs, but now it’s ours and we get to live out their legacy in a way.”
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Washington. A group of anti-Israel student protesters who occupied and damaged an engineering building at the University of Washington during a BDS protest last year have completed their suspensions and are now allowed to return to campus. The group, called “UW33,” had done over a
million dollars in damage
during their vandalism and yet they griped in recent days that “Nothing justifies eight months of suspensions, loss of jobs, housing and community on campus, the police brutality sustained and the $200,000+ lost/repaid to UW.” The protest efforts resulted in 21 suspensions; it had been centered on unsuccessfully pushing the school to sever ties with Boeing over the latter’s business ties to Israel. ADL has been in ongoing communication with University of Washington leadership, meeting with administrators to offer guidance on campus safety, enforcement of conduct policies and protecting Jewish students amid ongoing tensions. Also, ADL noted that the new university
president is bringing in an outside firm to strengthen the student code of conduct. Handily, we have a guide for that. You can read the ADL best practices guide for university admins to use to improve their policies, including codes of conduct.
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(Source: KOMO News | YouTube) |
DEEPER: A 2024 report by ADL-affiliate JLens warned that divestment could cost major universities billions in endowment returns over the next decade. Not sure what BDS is all about? See ADL's
Guide to Understanding and Countering BDS Calls.
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Columbia. Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader, is likely to be deported to Algeria following
an appeals court ruling in favor of the Trump administration. Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident but not a citizen, led disruptive campus protests through Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a group accused of endorsing violence and promoting extremist rhetoric. While Khalil has become a cause célèbre in some circles, Jewish students and university reports previously documented widespread antisemitism during the protests that CUAD helped lead. ADL has been on the front lines throughout the Columbia protests, offering support directly to Columbia students who have experienced antisemitism, meeting with administration to offer support and resources and training the
university's public safety officers to better understand contemporary antisemitism.
Columbia Update. This week, Columbia appointed University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin as its fourth president in two years — and its first Jewish leader in three decades. ADL thanks Interim President Shipman for her work to safeguard Jewish students, staff and faculty on campus and looks forward to working closely with the new administration to continue supporting the Jewish campus community.
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Coming Together in Canada. Nearly 300 Jewish university students from across Canada gathered
in Ontario for what organizers called Canada’s largest Shabbat-centered Jewish student leadership retreat in nearly two decades. The national Hillel Shabbaton brought together students from British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec for a weekend focused on Jewish identity, leadership, advocacy and connection at a time of heightened campus pressure. The event emphasized the value of coordination across campuses facing similar challenges, replacing isolation with shared strategy and community. Organizers described the gathering as both a celebration of Jewish life and a practical response to the realities Jewish students are navigating nationwide.
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Shabbaton students. (Image source: Hillel.org) |
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