As UCLA works to restore $500 million in federal grant funding cut by the Trump administration earlier this year, the university’s chancellor, Julio Frenk, said on Thursday that there are three principles the campus must “safeguard” amid its negotiations with the government. 

“We need to assure that there’s no government interference in who we hire, who we admit and what we teach or do research on,” Frenk told radio talk show host Larry Mantle. The two spoke during a virtual event on Thursday hosted by Jews United for Democracy and Justice, a group formed in response to President Donald Trump’s executive orders during his first term that prohibited travel and refugee resettlement from select, predominately Muslim, countries. 

“That’s the core of academic freedom,” Frenk, who began his tenure as chancellor in January, said of the series of principles.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent a 28-page settlement proposal to UCLA, The Los Angeles Times reported. In addition to accusations that the university failed to address antisemitism on campus, the government said it was cutting funding over the school’s use of race in admissions and the school’s recognition of transgender identities. Frenk said that he is not directly participating in the negotiations. 

Frenk, a Jewish physician whose grandparents settled in Mexico after fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s, admitted that UCLA has “a real problem with antisemitism” and said the university needs “to tackle it.” 

But he criticized the Trump administration’s approach of “cutting funding for life-saving and life-transforming research,” saying it “doesn’t address the problem of antisemitism.”

Asked how he would handle an incident similar to last year’s demonstration in which pro-Palestinian protesters blocked campus access for some Jewish students, leading to a lawsuit and a $6 million settlement in July, Frenk responded that “if anything happens like that, we will act immediately, because we now have very clear rules” around demonstrations. The university released a new set of time, place and manner policies earlier this month.  

Questioned whether UCLA would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism — as Harvard and Columbia have recently done while similarly under antisemitism investigations — Frenk declined to endorse or oppose the idea, which is supported by many pro-Israel students and faculty.   

Soon after stepping into his new role at UCLA, Frenk suspended the undergraduate and graduate chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine after their members vandalized the home of UC Regent Jay Sures. In March, he announced an initiative to implement the recommendations of a task force that examined antisemitism and anti-Israel activity on campus. On Thursday, Frenk said that as part of the initiative, the university was “about to announce the recruitment of a Title VI officer” to enforce federal civil rights statutes and implement training for students and staff. 

Frenk said that combating campus antisemitism will make all students on campus safer. “A reason to fight antisemitism is to also protect our non-Jewish, including our Muslim students. We cannot accept bigotry, discrimination, hatred against one group. History shows us that if one group is attacked, and we allow that to go on, everyone is unsafe. So, this applies to all of our students.”

When the leaders of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley sat down on Tuesday morning to testify at a congressional hearing about antisemitism, they clearly came prepared, having learned the lessons of the now-infamous December 2023 hearing with the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT, each of whom refused to outright say that calls for genocide violated their schools’ codes of conduct. 

Georgetown interim President Robert Groves, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez and UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons were all quick to denounce antisemitism and even anti-Zionism at Tuesday’s House Education and Workforce Committee hearing examining the role of faculty, funding and ideology in campus antisemitism. 

But while the university administrators readily criticized antisemitism broadly, they struggled to apply that commitment directly to their field of academia. 

Lyons in particular offered a revealing look at the gulf between a university’s stated values and its difficulty in carrying them out. 

He was asked to account for the promotion of Ussama Makdisi, a Berkeley history professor who described the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks as “resistance” and later wrote on X that he “could have been one of those who broke the siege on October 7.” Why, Lyons was asked by Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL) and Lisa McClain (R-MI), did Berkeley announce last September that Makdisi had been named the university’s inaugural chair of Palestinian and Arab studies? 

Lyons first defended Makdisi: “Ussama Makdisi, Professor Makdisi, is a fine scholar. He was awarded that position from his colleagues based on academic standards,” Lyons said.  

Later, when McClain followed Fine’s line of questioning, Lyons went to great lengths to avoid criticizing Makdisi. 

“I want to separate the phrase from the person. If I heard some other person —” he said, before McClain cut him off. What, McClain asked, did Lyons think Makdisi meant with his tweet?

For five seconds, Lyons sat in silence. 

“I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on Oct. 7,” he replied slowly. 

He shared that he had spoken to Makdisi about the social media post. Pressed to share what the conversation was like, Lyons returned to an earlier line: “He’s a fine scholar,” Lyons said. 

Lyons, like Matos Rodriguez and Groves, acknowledged that antisemitism exists at his campus. But they all struggled to reckon with what Republican lawmakers alleged was an explosion in antisemitism at each of the three schools after Oct. 7. 

“I believe that most Jewish students feel safe on our campus,” Lyons said, though he also said that he knows some do not feel safe. When asked why they may not feel safe, he demurred. 

“Well, I think there are Jewish people that don’t feel safe in lots of parts —” he said, cut off again by McClain, who asked him to speak specifically about UC Berkeley. 

“I think there is antisemitism in society,” Lyons said, before he was cut off again. 

Lyons repeatedly attempted to make the same point: “I do believe that public universities are reflections of society, and I believe the antisemitism in society is present on our campus,” Lyons said. Asked whether the actions that he takes or that his faculty take can influence the campus environment, he said yes. McClain accused him of “avoiding the question,” and asked: Would he commit to act to make sure all Jewish students and all students feel safe?

“I’m committing to striving to reach that goal,” said Lyons.

Each of the university leaders was asked, at different occasions, to account for faculty members who had shared antisemitic or pro-Hamas rhetoric. Matos Rodriguez, the CUNY chancellor, did not deny that the New York City university system employs antisemitic faculty, though he did not specify whether any action would be taken against them.

“We have faculty that might conduct themselves in antisemitic behavior, and we have no tolerance for it, and we’re clear about the expectations to follow all our rules and policies,” Matos Rodriguez said. “If any individual breaks those rules, they will be investigated, and the appropriate disciplinary action will be taken if warranted.” 

Presented with the cases of two faculty members who had shared pro-Hamas content on social media, Matos Rodriguez condemned Hamas, but did not say specifically if their rhetoric violated codes of conduct or led to any consequences.

“I have been very clear that Hamas is a horrible terrorist organization, and we have no tolerance at the City University of New York for anyone who would embrace that support of Hamas,” said Matos Rodriguez. “I clearly condemn the statements, and it’s been my testimony here, and our practice, that if any member of the City University community violates our policies and our code of conduct, we will conduct an investigation, and if discipline is warranted, we will take it, and we will not hesitate to do that, and we have done so.”

Groves, Georgetown’s president, shared early in the hearing that the university had taken action against Jonathan Brown, a tenured professor who faced criticism last month for a tweet calling for Iran to conduct a “symbolic strike” on a U.S. military base after Washington struck Iranian nuclear sites. Brown is no longer the chair of the university’s Arabic and Islamic studies program, Groves said, and he has been placed on leave pending an investigation. 

Groves, who faced several questions about Georgetown’s ties to Qatar, pledged to commit to disclosing every dollar that Georgetown receives from foreign sources. 

At the same time, he stood by Georgetown’s decision to award Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of the Qatari emir, with the university’s president’s medal in April. Sheikha Moza has a history of incendiary anti-Israel commentary on social media, including several posts praising the Oct. 7 attacks and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who orchestrated the violence. Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) asked Groves why Georgetown gave her a medal, given those posts.

The medal was awarded because of her “decades-long work for educating, getting access to education, to the poorest children around the world,” Groves said. 

“I don’t support that tweet,” he added, when asked if Georgetown’s values include calls for the destruction of Israel. “That tweet is not consistent with Georgetown policy. We honored her for her decades of work in access to education to the poorest children of the world.” Georgetown would not consider revoking the award, he added.

Groves’ stated commitment to transparency about its sources of foreign funding — the university’s 20-year relationship with Qatar is well-documented and oft-criticized — stood in contrast to Lyons’ response to questions about whether he would disclose all foreign funding to Berkeley. 

“As a public university, I am not ready to commit to that on the fly. There are different donors to the university who request anonymity,” Lyons said. “What I’d be very, very happy to be very transparent about is exactly what is our process for vetting those things. We say no to a lot of foreign money. I promise you that.”

He would not give an example of foreign money he had rejected. 

Democrats at the hearing mostly used their time to criticize President Donald Trump’s approach to higher education, and his funding cuts that are affecting scientific and medical research at top universities. They highlighted his administration’s massive cuts to the Education Department, including at the Office for Civil Rights, the division tasked with investigating civil rights violations — including antisemitism — at American schools and universities.

By the time a group of activists attempted to erect an encampment at Washington University in St. Louis in late April 2024, Andrew D. Martin, the chancellor of the university, had already carefully considered how he would respond. It was a benefit, he said recently, of being “in the middle of the country,” far from the national media that ceaselessly covered the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University and other high-profile campuses. 

Campus police arrested more than 100 people, the vast majority of whom had no ties to the university, and the encampment was shut down. Faculty, staff and student leaders all spoke out against university leadership for bringing in the police. But Martin saw it as an opportunity to enforce university rules and avoid the chaos playing out elsewhere. 

“We take a very strong pro-free speech approach,” Martin, a political scientist, told Jewish Insider in an interview last month. “But we also have restrictions which are based on time, place and manner. And for us, it was really clear, and we made it very clear to the campus community. Look, you can protest all you want. … But you can’t take over our buildings, you can’t deface our property and you also can’t set up an encampment.”  

Since then, Martin has teamed up with Daniel Diermeier, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University, in something of an informal pact — a joint effort to promote principled leadership in higher education, presenting their two schools as a refreshing counterweight to the dysfunction plaguing higher-ranked competitors like Harvard and Columbia. Both campuses largely steered clear of major antisemitic incidents in that intense spring semester in 2024. (The period has not been without criticism for Diermeier, either; he faced pushback from some faculty and students after canceling a vote on an anti-Israel boycott resolution.)

This February, Diermeier and Martin wrote a joint op-ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education calling on other universities to reject “creeping politicization.”

“The universities we oversee have drawn a line against politicization so that we can continue contributing to the nation’s competitiveness and strength abroad, and to stability and prosperity here at home. All American research universities should do the same,” Diermeier and Martin wrote. 

Published just days after President Donald Trump took office with the promise of scrutinizing elite liberal universities, the article was an attempt at setting out a marker, signaling to Trump and potential applicants that Vanderbilt and WashU haven’t lost focus like so many other universities who have found themselves in crisis mode since the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023. 

Both schools were committed to institutional neutrality — a position that has now been adopted by more than 100 American universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Syracuse — well before Oct. 7 and its aftermath led other university administrators to conclude it is in their interests to not weigh in on complex political and social causes.  

“Whether it’s fossil fuel divestment or Ukraine or other things, we’re just not going to engage. Our faculty have strong views on those issues, as do our students. It’s their job to be advocates. It’s our job to create a playing field, if you will, for them to have those views,” said Martin. 

Diermeier said universities that had not adopted a stance of principled neutrality were susceptible to “competitive lobbying,” where students demand a response on one side or another.

“We saw this in gory detail after Oct. 7, where you had one group who wanted to say, ‘Well, you need to denounce Israel of genocide,’ and the other one said, ‘No, you have to support Israel,’” Diermeier told JI in June. “It ripped many university campuses apart. And we were very, very clear from the beginning that we are committed to institutional neutrality. We will not divest from companies that have ties to Israel. We will not denounce Israel’s ‘genocide.’ We will not boycott products that are associated with Israel in any way, shape or form.” 

It comes down to the role of a university — and whether it is up to university administrators to pick a side. Doing so, the chancellors argued, undermines trust in their institutions. (Others take a different position, like Ora Pescovitz, president of Oakland University, a small public university in Michigan: “A president’s voice is precious,” she told JI last year.)

“There’s a certain arrogance for us, that we think that if, like, Harvard speaks, that somehow an issue is settled,” said Diermeier, a political scientist and management scholar. “What is the purpose of the university? What we’re very clear on is that universities are about the creation and dissemination of knowledge through research and education and related activities. They are not in the business of becoming partisans in any type of political or ideological battle.” 

Many universities are still navigating the post-Oct. 7 maelstrom, trying to handle competing concerns from students, parents, alumni and faculty — all while facing civil rights investigations by the federal government. In March, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote a letter to 60 schools under investigation for antisemitic discrimination, including Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Stanford and Princeton. 

“I think people that visit us see the difference, and they say this is a great place for Jewish families and for Jewish students to thrive, and we’re very proud of that,” said Diermeier. “We want to be a place where every member of our community can thrive. And right now, in the current environment, I think the contrast between what’s happening at other universities and what’s happening at Vanderbilt is visible for people.” 

Vanderbilt and WashU were not on the list. That presents an opening for them to reach Jewish students with concerns about what they’re seeing elsewhere, particularly as the Jewish student populations at many top universities have shrunk. According to Hillel International, just 7% of Harvard’s undergraduates are Jewish, compared to 14% at Vanderbilt and 22% at WashU. 

“The Jewish community at Washington University is very robust. Our students are comfortable and proud living out their Jewish identity on our campus, and have been able to do so for generations. And we’ll make sure that they’re able to do this over generations to come,” said Martin. WashU implemented a new transfer program soon after Oct. 7 to allow students to transfer for the spring semester, rather than waiting until the following fall. Several Jewish students took advantage of it after facing antisemitism on their old campuses. 

WashU’s appeal to Jewish students is not new; it has for years been tagged with the nickname “WashJew.” And more than two decades ago, Vanderbilt’s former chancellor said that targeting Jewish students was an explicit part of the university’s bid to better compete with Ivy League schools. Diermeier seeks to continue that push.

“I think people that visit us see the difference, and they say this is a great place for Jewish families and for Jewish students to thrive, and we’re very proud of that,” said Diermeier. “We want to be a place where every member of our community can thrive. And right now, in the current environment, I think the contrast between what’s happening at other universities and what’s happening at Vanderbilt is visible for people.” 

“It became clear to Daniel [Diermeier] and me that we’re never going to be able to have the sustained federal support or, for that matter, state support of our institutions, without broad support of the American people, and that the American people, in some respect, lost faith in us because of places where we have diverged from those important core principles,” said Martin. “That was amplified by the events of Oct. 7, or what happened after Oct. 7.”

Martin and Diermeier see themselves and their institutions as the stewards of a forward-looking case for higher education at a time when the institution is under attack, both from Washington and from Americans, whose trust in higher education has plummeted. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans said in 2015 that they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in U.S. higher education, according to Gallup. In 2024, that number was 36%. Among Republicans, the number dropped from 56% to 20% in nine years. Among Democrats, the decrease was milder — but still present, moving from 68% to 56%.  

Oct. 7 only sharpened that distrust, Martin said. Regaining that confidence, he argued, is imperative to saving the institution of higher education — and staving off federal funding threats from Trump. 

“It became clear to Daniel [Diermeier] and me that we’re never going to be able to have the sustained federal support or, for that matter, state support of our institutions, without broad support of the American people, and that the American people, in some respect, lost faith in us because of places where we have diverged from those important core principles,” said Martin. “That was amplified by the events of Oct. 7, or what happened after Oct. 7.”

It’s not just about values. It’s a savvy political move. After all, both Vanderbilt and WashU would be in trouble if federal research dollars stopped flowing to the schools, or if Trump made the call that they could not admit international students, as is the case with Harvard. 

When asked about his approach to the Trump administration, Diermeier repeatedly declined to answer questions about the matter on the record. 

Martin acknowledged that he is concerned.

“I’m worried about everything coming out of Washington, whether that’s legislative action or actions of the administration, around endowment excise tax, federal research funding, the ability to have federal financial aid, the ability to admit international students. All of those things are up for grabs,” Martin said. 

But what WashU and Vanderbilt are willing to do is acknowledge that there are big problems in American academia. In other words, they’re saying that Trump’s got a point.

“Here are two institutions that are willing to stand in the public square and say, American higher education has lost its way in some respects,” said Martin. “We’re great institutions, and we’re committed to working to ensure that our institutions and higher education writ large will do better in the future.”