In response to a Title VI complaint filed against Rutgers University, alleging nearly 300 antisemitic incidents and nearly 150 anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, the New Jersey public university agreed on Thursday to implement a series of trainings to improve the campus climate.

The complaint, which was filed in December 2023 with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and included all four Rutgers campuses (New Brunswick, Newark, Camden and Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences), stated that the university received more than 400 reports alleging shared ancestry discrimination between July 2023 and June 2024. Of those reports, 293 alleged discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students and 147 reports alleged discrimination against Palestinian, Arab, South Asian and Muslim students.

Incidents targeting Jewish or Israeli students since Oct. 7 included a report that a student posted on social media, encouraging violence against an Israeli student, identifying where the Israeli student lived; as well as the reported egging of the Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life. 

Ahead of testimony on Capitol Hill in May by Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway, hundreds of Jewish Rutgers students, faculty, administrators and staff signed onto a pair of letters condemning the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus. Lawmakers, including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, have also condemned the university’s response to the situation. 

Last academic year, Rutgers lifted the brief suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine’s chapter on its flagship New Brunswick campus and imposed a one-year probation period following an investigation into alleged disruptive behavior.

Under the new resolution, Rutgers said it would enact several steps including reviewing its policies and procedures around enforcing Title VI as well as providing training to employees responsible for investigating discrimination complaints. 

The American Jewish Committee’s New Jersey director, Rabbi David Levy, said in a statement that by entering into the agreement, “Rutgers has acknowledged Jewish students have faced a hostile learning environment across its campuses both before and since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel.” 

“Rutgers must now make an unequivocal commitment to meaningful reform, which can be achieved without infringing on academic freedom and the right to assemble and protest,” Levy said.

In the wake of Oct. 7, Title VI complaints have surged nationally. Currently, the OCR has about 400 complaints related to discrimination based on shared ancestry or national origin, with more than 160 of those being related to antisemitism complaints. 

Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told lawmakers in September at a roundtable with congressional Democrats. Lhamon emphasized that many more cases go unreported. 

In a statement on Thursday, Lhamon said that Rutgers “has committed to resolution terms that will address serious Title VI noncompliance indicated in their records regarding different treatment of students based on stereotypes about the countries students and their families come from.”