Cornell University agreed to conduct “annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry” as part of an agreement it reached with the Trump administration on Friday. 

The settlement will restore more than $250 million in federal funding that was cut from the Ivy League school earlier this year, over allegations that it failed to address campus antisemitism. The annual surveys will “ask students whether they feel welcome at Cornell; whether they feel safe reporting antisemitism at Cornell; and whether they believe the changes Cornell has made since October 2023 have benefited the Cornell community.” 

The federal government concluded that Cornell is not in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and has closed the relevant investigations.

“I am pleased that our good faith discussions with the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Education have concluded with an agreement that acknowledges the government’s commitment to enforce existing anti-discrimination law, while protecting our academic freedom and institutional independence,” Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff told Jewish Insider on Friday. “These discussions have now yielded a result that will enable us to return to our teaching and research in restored partnership with federal agencies.”

Under the terms of the settlement, in which Cornell agreed to pay $60 million — half to the government and the other $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers — the university must also ensure it is in compliance with government civil rights laws and provide admissions data to the government to ensure race is not considered a factor in admissions. 

The settlement includes a provision stating that the university and government both “affirm the importance of and their support for academic freedom.” It also said that no part of the settlement could be “construed as giving the United States authority to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula.”

Menachem Rosensaft, an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School who teaches about antisemitism in the courts, called the settlement a “significant victory for Cornell.”

“It is proof that the Cornell administration under President Kotlikoff has in fact been doing — and is doing — everything in its power, and everything that is appropriate within the restraints posed by academic freedom, to protect its Jewish students, faculty and staff against any type of antisemitic discrimination, just as it is protecting all members of the Cornell community from Title VI or Title IX based discrimination,” Rosensaft told JI. 

“Of course there remains work to be done to fight against antisemitic manifestations at Cornell, just as there is at virtually every university and college in this country. But the settlement is proof that Kotlikoff and his administration are fully invested and engaged in this fight.”

The six-page agreement comes weeks after a similar one was signed by the University of Virginia; however, the Charlottesville campus’ settlement did not explicitly address Jewish students. Columbia University, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania also cut deals with the government earlier this year. The Trump administration is still reportedly in talks to reach agreements with Harvard University and the University of California. 

The move from Cornell comes as its graduate student union is considering a BDS resolution that accuses Jewish students of “weaponizing antisemitism” and blames labor disputes on “Zionist interests” — where, unlike many other unions, dues are mandatory.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, Cornell made headlines for several high-profile incidents. Those included a student’s online threats to shoot Jewish students at the kosher dining hall — and, following a leave of absence, the return to campus earlier this year of Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history who called Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

Cornell’s former president, Martha Pollack, issued a set of recommendations aimed at countering antisemitism in May 2024. Pollack resigned in July 2024, citing “enormous, unexpected challenges” on campus amid the Israel-Hamas war. 

If elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani has said he would reassess the partnership between Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, potentially kicking the joint Cornell Tech campus out of its home on Roosevelt Island in New York City. 

But two Jewish Mamdani backers who represent Roosevelt Island and have supported the project have been silent about his plans.

Cornell and Technion were selected by city officials under Mayor Mike Bloomberg in 2010 to build the campus on city-owned land and received $100 million in other incentives. It opened in 2017.

Mamdani’s campaign told The New York Times and Ynet that he would reassess the partnership if elected. As mayor, Mamdani would have the authority to appoint new members to Roosevelt Island’s governing board, giving him influence over management of the island. 

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and state Sen. Liz Krueger, both of whom have been supporters of Mamdani, as well as active backers of the Cornell Tech campus, did not respond to requests for comment. Both have appointees on the community task force that supported the construction of the campus, which is within their districts.

Mamdani called for a boycott of the campus shortly after being elected to the state Senate in 2020, and said that “Technion University is an Israeli University that has helped to develop a lot of weapons technology used by the IDF” and that the campus should be assessed through “the lens of BDS” — the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel — according to the New York Post.

Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on his stance or plans for the campus.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Mamdani’s plans were “terrible.”

“It smacks of an academic boycott of a respected Israeli university,” Shapiro said. “It also is a great way to drive innovation jobs out of the city. Both wrong in principle and self-defeating in practice.”

Mamdani is also expected to attempt to block further investment in Israel bonds in the city’s pension fund and has said he would shut down the New York City-Israel Economic Council launched by Mayor Eric Adams.

A BDS resolution that accuses Jewish students of “weaponizing antisemitism” and blames labor disputes on “Zionist interests” is advancing in the Cornell University Graduate Student Union — where unlike many other unions, dues are mandatory. 

The draft resolution, which was published earlier this month and obtained by Jewish Insider, states that “the dismantling of unions in higher education based on Zionist interests is not only to the detriment of graduate worker unions — it threatens the working class and labor unions nationwide.”

The resolution also says that a September Senate Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Committee subcommittee hearing focused on antisemitism within unions “succinctly crystallizes how autocrats are weaponizing antisemitism charges against unions in higher education to undermine labor unions nationwide.”  

“The House Republicans and representatives of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation repeatedly drew connections [at the hearing] between the collective interests of labor unions and imperial investments in the dispossession and genocide of the Palestinian people,” the draft states. “Under the guise of antisemitism, they denounced graduate worker unions’ interest in protecting their rights to engage in political protest in support of Palestinian liberation.”

Jewish students who have applied for an exemption to the dues requirement over the union’s anti-Israel behavior say they face monthslong waits, intimidation over unpaid fees and even professional consequences.

According to two Jewish students, the union has removed “most Jewish students” from the listserv, making them unaware of when the resolution will be submitted and what the voting process will be.  

David Rubinstein, a sixth year history Ph.D. candidate at Cornell, told JI that the “resolution is merely the latest chapter in CGSU’s yearslong campaign to make Jewish students feel unwelcome.”

“By endlessly attacking Israel and ‘Zionists’ — while ignoring every other conflict in the world — the union has created a hostile work environment that has impacted many students’ academic careers,” continued Rubinstein. “Depicting ‘Zionist interests’ as undercutting the working class has nothing to do with wages or benefits — rather, it reveals a conspiracy-tinged worldview.”

Another Jewish graduate student, who spoke to JI on the condition of anonymity over fears of being doxxed or harassed by the union, said the draft “is full of libelous comparisons and makes no mention of the harm BDS would do to Jewish students on campus.” 

“It’s completely denying antisemitism as a very real and present problem on campus,” the student said. 

In tandem with the resolution, the union has made threats to fire Ph.D. students who refuse to pay them, according to Rubinstein. 

“Cornell could have denied the union’s demand for mandatory dues — as many other universities have done,” he said. “Instead, objectors must undergo a burdensome exemption process requiring the disclosure of highly personal information. It is wrong that antisemites have been granted authority to determine whether I am Jewish enough not to fund their union.”

Cornell did not respond to a request for comment from JI about the resolution and the union’s requirement that all graduate students pay dues. 

Cornell’s graduate school came under scrutiny last month when Eric Cheyfitz, a professor with a history of anti-Israel activism, attempted to exclude an Israeli graduate student from participating in his course on Gaza. Cheyfitz was placed on leave, and retired weeks later. The school’s student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, published a graphic during the week of the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks depicting a bloodied Star of David and Nazi “SS” symbol on the back of a Palestinian person.

Cornell University placed a professor with a history of anti-Israel activism on leave this week following his attempt to exclude an Israeli student from participating in his course on Gaza, Jewish Insider has learned. 

A Cornell spokesperson told JI that “a complaint was filed” against Eric Cheyfitz, a professor of American studies and humane letters, “who admitted to actions that violated federal civil rights laws and fell short of the university’s expectations for student interactions.”

“Based on the findings of this investigation, the faculty member is not teaching this semester and significant disciplinary action is being recommended,” the spokesperson said. A source familiar with the course told JI that Cheyfitz informed the Israeli student that he was not welcome in the class. Cheyfitz did not respond to a request for comment from JI. 

Cheyfitz, who is Jewish, was previously involved with Cornell’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and has served as a faculty advisor to the campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. He began teaching the course, titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” last spring semester. 

The course description states that the class aims to teach students how to “analyze Indigenous perspectives on political, social, and environmental systems,” in the context of a “global war against an ongoing colonialism,” as well as explore themes such as “Indigeneity,” “Resistance,” “SettlerColonialism,” and “Genocide” in both “international law and Indigenous contexts.”  

Three weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, Cheyfitz also offered a “teach-in” titled “Gaza, Settler Colonialism, and the Global War Against Indigenous People.”

In May, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff objected to the course. “Cornell courses should provoke thought and present multiple viewpoints, rather than transmit pre-formed views of a complex conflict, and I personally find the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate, and biased view of the formation of the State of Israel and the ongoing conflict,” Kotlikoff wrote in an email to faculty member Menachem Rosensaft after he raised concerns about the class. 

Rosensaft, an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School, told JI on Friday that he is confident Cornell administration is “doing everything in their power to see to it that no Cornell students, including Israeli and Jewish students, are discriminated against, harassed or otherwise abused.”

The disciplinary action against Cheyfitz comes as some have criticized Cornell for its decision to allow Professor Russell Rickford, who in 2023 called the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks “exhilarating” and “energizing,” to return to Cornell earlier this year as an associate professor of history following a leave of absence. In an interview with JI in March, Kotlikoff said Rickford was allowed back because his statements were “not in [the] classroom and we have no evidence of Professor Rickford doing anything in the classroom.”

Cornell’s ongoing talks with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions in federal funds that were cut over an alleged failure to address campus antisemitism are currently stalled.  

For a brief moment, it looked like 2024 all over again: Tents were erected at Yale University’s central plaza on Tuesday night, with anti-Israel activists hoping to loudly protest the visit of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to campus. Videos of students in keffiyehs, shouting protest slogans, started to spread online on Tuesday night.

But then something unexpected happened. University administrators showed up, threatening disciplinary action, and the protesters were told to leave — or face consequences. So they left. The new encampment didn’t last a couple hours, let alone overnight. The next day, Yale announced that it had revoked its recognition of Yalies4Palestine, the student group that organized the protest. (On Wednesday night, a large protest occurred outside the off-campus building where Ben-Gvir was speaking.)

Meanwhile, at Cornell University, President Michael Kotlikoff announced on Wednesday that he had canceled an upcoming campus performance by R&B singer Kehlani because of her history of anti-Israel social media posts. He wrote in an email to Cornell affiliates that he had heard from many people who were “angry, hurt and confused” that the school’s annual spring music festival “would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos and on social media.” 

The quick decisions from administrators at Yale and Cornell to shut down anti-Israel activity reflect something of a vibe shift on American campuses. One year ago, anti-Israel encampments were, for a few weeks, de rigueur on campus quads across the nation. University leaders seemed paralyzed, unsure of how to handle protests that in many cases explicitly excluded Jewish or Zionist students and at times became violent. That’s a markedly different environment from what’s happening at those same schools so far this spring. 

“In general, protest activity is way down this year as compared to last year,” Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman told Jewish Insider. 

There is no single reason that protests have subsided. Jewish students, campus Jewish leaders and professionals at Jewish advocacy organizations attribute the change to a mix of factors: stricter consequences from university leaders, fear of running afoul of President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport pro-Hamas foreign students and the issue generally losing steam and cachet among easily distracted students. 

Last spring, an encampment at The George Washington University was only dismantled after the university faced threats from Congress. Now, no such protest is taking place — which Daniel Schwartz, a Jewish history professor, said was likely due in part to the “sense that the university was going to be responding much more fiercely to anything resembling what happened last year.” 

“For the most part, the enforcement of rules, the understanding of what the rules are, what you can do, what you can’t do, requiring people to get permits for protests, has really calmed things down [from] the sort of violence that we saw last year,” said Jordan Acker, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, who has faced antisemitic vandalism and targeted, personal protests from Michigan students.

Michael Simon, the executive director at Northwestern Hillel, came into the school year with a “big question mark” of how the school’s new policies, which provide strict guidance for student protests and the type of behavior allowed at them, would be applied. “I’m going to say it with a real hedging: at least up until now, I would say we’ve seen the lower end of what I would have expected,” he said of campus anti-Israel protests.

Many major universities like Northwestern spent last summer honing their campus codes of conduct and their regulations for student protests, making clear at the start of the school year that similar actions would not be tolerated again. In February, for instance, Barnard College expelled two students who loudly disrupted an Israeli history class at Columbia,. 

“For the most part, the enforcement of rules, the understanding of what the rules are, what you can do, what you can’t do, requiring people to get permits for protests, has really calmed things down [from] the sort of violence that we saw last year,” said Jordan Acker, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, who has faced antisemitic vandalism and targeted, personal protests from Michigan students.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has pressured top universities to crack down on antisemitic activity. The president’s threats to revoke federal funding if universities don’t get antisemitism under control has drawn pushback — Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its decision to withhold $2.2 billion in federal funds from the school — but it has also led universities to take action to address the problem. 

Sharon Nazarian, an adjunct professor at UCLA and the vice chair of the Anti-Defamation League’s board of directors, said there is “no question” that “the national atmosphere of fear among university administrators for castigation and targeting by the [Trump] administration is also present” at UCLA and other University of California campuses.

“My sense is that being anti-Israel is not as much of the popular thing anymore,” Evan Cohen, a senior at the University of Michigan, said at a Wednesday webinar hosted by Hillel International for Jewish high school seniors. “On my campus, there are other hot topic issues. There might be more focus on what’s happening with U.S. domestic politics.” 

Rule-breaking student activists also face a heightened risk of law enforcement action. A dozen anti-Israel student protesters were charged with felonies this month for vandalizing the Stanford University president’s office last June. On Wednesday, local, state and federal law enforcement officials in Michigan raided the homes of three people connected to anti-Israel protests at the University of Michigan. Protesters’ extreme tactics  have scared off some would-be allies.

“I think some of the most activist students went too far at the end of last year with the takeover of the president’s office and a lot of pretty intense graffiti in important places on campus,” said Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, the executive director of Hillel at Stanford. “I think a lot of other students looked at that and said, ‘Oh, this is perhaps not where we want to be.’”

Students’ priorities shift each year, and other issues beyond Israel are also vying for their attention. Trump’s policies targeting foreign students are drawing ire from students at liberal universities, many of which have large populations of international students.

“My sense is that being anti-Israel is not as much of the popular thing anymore,” Evan Cohen, a senior at the University of Michigan, said at a Wednesday webinar hosted by Hillel International for Jewish high school seniors. “On my campus, there are other hot topic issues. There might be more focus on what’s happening with U.S. domestic politics.” 

But the lack of protests does not mean that campus life has returned to normal for Jewish students, many of whom still fear — and face — opprobrium for their pro-Israel views.

“It’s easy to avoid the protests but if you are an Israeli student or a Jewish student perceived to be a Zionist, you should expect to be discriminated against in social spaces at the university,” Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, executive director of Harvard Hillel, told JI. “That is the most powerful way students are impacted by all of this.”

Ken Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which since Oct. 7 has represented dozens of Jewish students in Title VI civil rights cases against their universities, said that campus-related lawsuits are only faintly slowing down this semester. 

“A lot of the staff and the administration think that, ‘OK, since there’s no protest outside, all the Jewish students must feel OK, and let’s put all this stuff that happened in the spring behind us.’ It’s really not the case,” said Or Yahalom, a senior at Northwestern University who was born in Israel. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all better for students. Jewish students are increasingly afraid to speak openly about their identity or connection to Israel, except in private, safe Jewish spaces.”

“Some campuses have been less intense than during last year’s historically awful period, but others have been bad enough,” Marcus told JI. “I believe that the federal crackdown, coupled with the impact of lawsuits and Title VI cases, has had a favorable impact at many campuses, but the problems have hardly gone away.”

Or Yahalom, a senior at Northwestern University who was born in Israel, recently attended a dinner with Northwestern President Michael Schill, who has faced criticism from Jewish Northwestern affiliates — including several members of its antisemitism advisory committee — for what they saw as the administration’s failure to adequately address antisemitism. 

“A lot of the staff and the administration think that, ‘OK, since there’s no protest outside, all the Jewish students must feel OK, and let’s put all this stuff that happened in the spring behind us.’ It’s really not the case,” said Yahalom. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all better for students. Jewish students are increasingly afraid to speak openly about their identity or connection to Israel, except in private, safe Jewish spaces.” 

Even without massive encampments, disruptive anti-Israel protests and campus actions have not gone away entirely, though they have been more infrequent this academic year. A Northwestern academic building housing the school’s Holocaust center was vandalized with “DEATH TO ISRAEL” graffiti last week. The office of Joseph Pelzman, an economist at The George Washington University who authored a plan calling for the U.S. to relocate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and redevelop the enclave, was vandalized in February. The Georgetown University Student Government Association is slated to hold a campus-wide referendum on university divestment from companies and academic institutions with ties to Israel at the end of the month. Smaller-scale protests continue at Columbia, with students chaining themselves to the Manhattan university’s main gate this week to protest the ICE detention of ​​Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, two foreign students who had led protests last year. 

Leaders of the University of Michigan’s anti-Israel coalition held a sham trial for the university president and Board of Regents members in the middle of the Diag, the main campus quad, this week. The event took place without issue, and the activists left when it ended. 

“I wouldn’t want to say that it’s perfect,” said Acker, the Board of Regents member. “But it’s certainly much better than a year ago.” 

The school year isn’t over. Some students at Columbia are planning to erect another encampment this month, NBC News reported on Wednesday. 

But they’ll be doing so at an institution with new leadership, weeks after Columbia reached an agreement with the Trump administration, where the Ivy League university pledged to take stronger action against antisemitism to avoid a massive funding cut. The pressure on Columbia to crack down on any encampment will be massive.

Cornell and Northwestern became the latest universities to lose federal funding on Tuesday, over what the Trump administration considers a failure to address antisemitism on campus. 

The White House announced it would freeze more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell and $790 million for Northwestern, according to The New York Times. The cuts come as the administration has launched a pressure campaign against dozens of elite colleges to crack down on the antisemitic demonstrations that have roiled campuses since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks — or risk losing federal funding. 

Cornell and Northwestern were among the 60 universities put on notice last month by the Department of Education that they could face financial cuts “if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.” 

Cornell’s new president, Michael Kotlikoff, told Jewish Insider last month — one week into his new role — that he was confident that the Ithaca, N.Y., Ivy League campus wouldn’t follow in the footsteps of other elite universities that lost federal funding due to campus antisemitism.  

“We think we have a very strong environment for Jews on campus,” Kotlikoff told JI on March 28. “We’ve had two very strong semesters. I’ve talked to a lot of Jewish student leaders on campus and I think everybody appreciates the fact that, with the exception of a couple of incidents that have occurred on campus and we’ve dealt with, people have seen a pretty normal semester.” 

Still, Cornell is among several universities that recently initiated a hiring freeze amid financial uncertainty around the possibility of funding cuts. 

In a statement to JI, Jon Yates, a spokesperson for Northwestern, said that the university has been informed of the funding freeze only by “members of the media” but it “has not received any official notification from the federal government.” 

Yates expressed concern that medical research led by the university is “now at jeopardy.”

He added, “The university has fully cooperated with investigations by both the Department of Education and Congress.” A spokesperson for Cornell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Brown, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton have all faced similar penalties over the past month.