At a time when some elite universities are acquiescing to the Trump administration’s demands to crack down on antisemitic activity on campus, Georgetown University is pushing back by issuing statements supportive of a university professor and postdoctoral scholar who was detained by federal authorities last week for his reported affiliations with Hamas. 

Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national who was studying and teaching as a postdoctoral fellow at the university on a student visa, was detained by federal immigration authorities outside of his home in Virginia last Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security alleges he was “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and “has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” according to a statement from Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS. 

Josh Weil, the Democratic challenger to Florida state Sen. Randy Fine in Tuesday’s special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, said in 2021 that the U.S. should withdraw its support for Israel.

Weil, who was initially seen as having little chance of victory in a district President Donald Trump carried by 30 points, raised close to $10 million and has mounted an aggressive campaign against Fine, prompting consternation among top Republicans. Republican internal polling reportedly shows Fine trailing, though Republicans in the state say publicly that they’re confident he’ll win.

Jews should not turn away friends who speak out against antisemitism, philanthropist and World Jewish Congress-Israel President Sylvan Adams said at the Israeli Diaspora Ministry’s International Conference on Combating Antisemitism on Thursday, which sparked controversy for including representatives of European nationalist parties.

Adams congratulated Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli for inviting “speakers from all political stripes” to Jerusalem. 

Michael Kotlikoff was tapped as Cornell University president on March 21 at a fraught moment for elite universities, as some have come under scrutiny from the Trump administration for what officials have alleged is a failure to address rising incidents of antisemitism on campus. The Ithaca, N.Y., Ivy League campus received warning this month from the Department of Education that it is under investigation for allowing antisemitic discrimination and risks losing funding cuts. 

Kotlikoff has served as the university’s interim president for the past eight months since the previous president, Martha Pollack, stepped down amid what she described as “enormous, unexpected challenges” on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war in the Israel. Kotlikoff, who like Pollack is Jewish, is confident that Cornell won’t follow in the footsteps of Columbia University, which recently lost $400 million in federal funding due to campus antisemitism. 

The House voted overwhelmingly to block two amendments by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to a bill requiring disclosure of university funding from and investments in certain U.S. adversary countries that appeared tailored to target Israel.

The Tlaib amendments to the DETERRENT Act would have required universities to disclose investments in countries defending war crimes or genocide cases at the International Court of Justice or countries whose leaders are facing active arrest warrants from the Intenrational Criminal Court, among other criteria, and to disclose donations from countries facing similar conditions.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced on Thursday that he will force a vote next week on a pair of resolutions cutting off some offensive arms sales to Israel, kicking off a repeat of his high-profile floor votes on similar measures last year that divided the Senate Democratic Caucus. 

The votes will be the first test on Israel for Senate Democrats of the current term — signaling how new lawmakers who were not in the Senate last year will approach the issue, as well as how Democrats will address it while in the minority, under the Trump administration and in the wake of the collapsed cease-fire agreement in Gaza. 

The University of Michigan will close its diversity, equity and inclusion offices and end its use of diversity statements across the university as a direct response to policy changes from the Trump administration, its president, Santa Ono, announced on Thursday. 

In an email sent to the university community, Ono and other top campus administrators announced sweeping changes to the university’s approach to its diversity programs. In addition to closing its campus DEI office and another one at Michigan Medicine, the university will discontinue its “DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan,” a university-wide initiative implemented in 2023 to increase DEI trainings and programs on campus. 

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held its first hearing specifically focused on campus antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, where panel members and witnesses sparred over the Trump administration’s overall response to the issue and cuts to the Department of Education.

A repeated focus during Thursday’s hearing was on the Trump administration’s moves to gut the Department of Education, including its Office for Civil Rights, which Democrats argued would undermine efforts to combat campus antisemitism.