Universities across the country are scrambling to prepare for a tougher legal environment before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House next week, with some settling antisemitism complaints — with resolutions that have faced criticism for their perceived weaknesses — with the Biden administration’s Department of Education in its final weeks.

“We’re seeing what appears to be a rush to issue weak resolution agreements at a time when stronger treatment might be at hand,” Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and former U.S. assistant secretary of education in the Bush and Trump administrations, told Jewish Insider.  

Trump ran on a promise that, if reelected, U.S. universities would lose accreditation and federal support if they fail to stop the rising level of antisemitism that has roiled campuses nationwide since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel. 

“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said in virtual remarks in September at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. 

While the federal government does not directly accredit universities, it plays a significant role in overseeing the organizations that give colleges accreditation. 

In a statement to JI, an Education Department spokesperson declined to address whether the recent influx of settlements were related to the incoming Trump administration. “The Office for Civil Rights works as expeditiously as possible to resolve investigations,” the spokesperson said, pointing to case resolution letters, which provide specific explanations for each case resolution. 

But Marcus noted that the Brandeis Center, which represents Jewish students in their lawsuits against universities, is “hearing from a lot of colleges and universities that are much more motivated to discuss settlement than they had been before the election.”

“That’s not a coincidence,” he told JI. “They clearly hear the footsteps of the new sheriff arriving into town and want to clean things up before President Trump and his team arrive. This is almost certainly related to the uptick in resolutions from OCR.” 

Mark Yudof, chair of the Academic Engagement Network and the former president of the University of California system, echoed that it’s “not accidental” that many universities “are trying to settle before the new administration takes place.” 

The incoming Trump administration “says that Title VI is on the table and I think that universities ought to take that seriously,” Yudof told JI. “There is some probability that there will be partial or full funding cutoffs.”

OCR has more than 120 existing cases related to discrimination based on shared ancestry or national origin under investigation, Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told lawmakers in September at a roundtable with congressional Democrats, adding that many more go unreported. Before seeking to revoke university funding, Lhamon said that her department must first investigate and communicate a finding that the subject of an investigation has violated civil rights law, at which point she’s required to give schools the opportunity to voluntarily come into compliance. Lhamon said that she does not have the authority to require schools to dismiss problematic faculty.

Settlements to Title VI cases reached this month include Rutgers’ agreement to implement a series of trainings to improve the campus climate. The complaint against the New Jersey public university alleged nearly 300 antisemitic incidents and nearly 150 anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. 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. 

“They’re very much in line with what has happened over the last 60 years of Title VI, which is that not one university or school district, public or private, has had even a partial cutoff of federal funds,” said Mark Yudof, chair of the Academic Engagement Network and the former president of the University of California system. 

In its resolution with Johns Hopkins University, in which  OCR said that the Baltimore college did not apply the right legal standard when determining if an incident created a hostile environment on campus, administrators agreed to require annual training for all staff responsible for investigating complaints. They also committed to administer a climate assessment on campus, review response reports from all incidents in the allotted time frame, give training to all students and staff on discrimination and give the office all complaints of discrimination in that time frame.  

Yudof called the recent resolutions — which also includes one made in December across the University of California system campuses — “just OK.” 

“There’s nothing innovative about them,” he said. “They’re very much in line with what has happened over the last 60 years of Title VI, which is that not one university or school district, public or private, has had even a partial cutoff of federal funds.” 

Yudof called for the resolutions to include “establishing Title VI offices to monitor and enforce standards.”

“And I think there ought to be some discipline if the speech itself is not constitutionally protected,” he said. 

Miriam Elman, executive director of AEN, added that in the current climate, “campuses will need to go well beyond the bare minimum requirements delineated in OCR agreements for Jewish students to be fully protected and supported.”

“For example,” Elman said, “none of the settlements have explicitly called for universities to update their policies so that discriminatory, harassing conduct is not shielded from consequences simply by referring to ‘Zionists’ as a substitute for ‘Jews.’” 

Marcus was more critical, describing the agreements as “anodyne” and lacking “the toughness that one sees reflected in President Trump’s statements.”  

“It is common to many of the Biden team’s resolutions that they won’t discuss antisemitism as a general rule, or will also discuss Islamophobia,” Marcus said. “Typically, they’ll want to throw in anti-Arab discrimination and other forms of discrimination as well. There’s a tendency to ‘all lives matter’ antisemitism claims.” 

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was first expanded to include antisemitic acts in December 2019, when then-President Trump signed an executive order at his White House Hanukkah reception. 

“It’s disgraceful that in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education is letting universities, including Rutgers, five University of California system campuses including UCLA, and Johns Hopkins, off the hook for their failures to address campus antisemitism,” said Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the new chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

“The Biden team has supposedly kept the Trump Executive Order in place, and yet they don’t mention it, even in those conspicuous places where one would expect to find it,” Marcus said. “They don’t really push for anything that reflects the gravity of the moment. One doesn’t get the sense of crisis, they are more business as usual.”  

On Thursday, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the new chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, blasted the Biden administration’s Department of Education for the recent series of settlement agreements with colleges and universities over antisemitism complaints. 

“It’s disgraceful that in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education is letting universities, including Rutgers, five University of California system campuses including UCLA, and Johns Hopkins, off the hook for their failures to address campus antisemitism,” Walberg, who took over leadership of the committee this year, said. “The toothless agreements shield schools from real accountability.” The statement described the agreements as “an obvious effort to shield universities from real accountability by the incoming Trump administration.”

Walberg’s statement, which was an indication that antisemitism will continue to remain a focus for the committee in the new Congress, also demanded that the Department of Education not sign any further agreements in the final days of the Biden administration. He urged the incoming Trump team to “closely examine these agreements and explore options to impose real consequences on schools, which could include giving complainants the opportunity to appeal these weak settlements.”

“Unsuccessful complainants should certainly be able to appeal,” Marcus said, pointing to the resolution at Johns Hopkins, in which the OCR dismissed complaints altogether. 

“It makes all the sense in the world why the House Education Committee would be worried that the Biden team will shut down these investigations at the last minute under terms that are very different than what the new administration would require,” said Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and former U.S. assistant secretary of education in the Bush and Trump administrations. “It’s notable that Chairman Walberg is urging the Biden team to hold off on issuing any more resolution agreements.” 

“Giving a similar opportunity to other plaintiffs is a novel idea that the Trump administration should certainly look at, but it’s different from prior practice,” Marcus continued. “What is especially troublesome right now is that the Biden administration entirely eliminated the right to appeal from Title VI and other civil rights complaints, making it difficult for people to get their fair day in court.” (The Brandeis Center has sued the Biden administration over the elimination.) 

“Everybody should have a right to be heard before their cases are dismissed, and if not they should certainly get a right to be heard afterwards,” Marcus said.

Typically, supporters of Jewish students would be urging the OCR to move as fast as possible to issue more resolution agreements. “But in this case it’s different,” Marcus said. “It makes all the sense in the world why the House Education Committee would be worried that the Biden team will shut down these investigations at the last minute under terms that are very different than what the new administration would require. It’s notable that Chairman Walberg is urging the Biden team to hold off on issuing any more resolution agreements.” 

Marcus continued, “Simply as a matter of respecting democratic decision-making, the new administration should be able to handle these cases.”

It’s spring in Cambridge, Mass. — graduation season — which means that large white tents have started to appear on the leafy quads throughout Harvard Square. 

Until Tuesday, a different kind of tent was still visible in Harvard Yard: small camping tents housing the stragglers who remained in Harvard’s anti-Israel encampment even after final exams wrapped up several days ago. Last week, Harvard suspended student protesters who refused to abide by campus administrators’ orders to disband the encampment, blocking access to their dorms. 

But now, just a week from the start of official university commencement festivities, Harvard has backtracked on its disciplinary action, ahead of the arrival next week of thousands of graduates’ family members, alumni and honorary degree recipients to the Ivy League university. University officials seemed to be saying that Harvard cannot get ready for commencement if Harvard Yard is still gated and locked, accessible only to university affiliates and the handful of people still camped out in protest of Harvard’s alleged “complicity in genocide.” 

In making a deal with the protesters, Harvard interim President Alan Garber joined a growing number of leaders at elite universities who are incorporating protesters’ voices into major university investment decisions and allowing student activists to get off with few, if any, repercussions after weeks of disciplinary violations. Harvard’s dean of the faculty of arts and sciences wrote in a Tuesday email that the outcome “deepened” the university’s “commitment to dialogue and to strengthening the bonds that pull us together as a community.” 

The path Garber took is now a well-trodden one — remove the threat of disciplinary consequences and allow protesters to meet with university trustees or other senior leaders to pitch them on divesting their schools’ endowments from Israeli businesses, a concession that before last month would have been unthinkable at America’s top universities. 

In a matter of days it has become commonplace. Just two years ago, Harvard’s then-president, Lawrence Bacow, responded to the campus newspaper’s endorsement of a boycott of Israel by saying that “any suggestion of targeting or boycotting a particular group because of disagreements over the policies pursued by their governments is antithetical to what we stand for as a university.” 

Northwestern University set the tone two weeks ago when President Michael Schill reached an agreement with anti-Israel protesters in exchange for them ending their encampment. Jewish leaders on campus found the agreement so problematic that the seven Jewish members of the university’s antisemitism committee — including Northwestern’s Hillel director, several faculty members and a student — stepped down in protest. Lily Cohen, a Northwestern senior who resigned from the committee, summed up their concerns: “It appears as though breaking the rules gets you somewhere, and trying to do things respectfully and by the books does not.” 

Her observation has proven prescient as universities negotiate with anti-Israel protesters who break campus rules while they slow-walk reforms long sought by Jewish students — or even avoid meeting with Jewish community members altogether. 

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone signed onto a far-reaching agreement with protesters this week that calls for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, condemns “genocide” and denounces “scholasticide” in Gaza and cuts off ties between a university-affiliated environmental NGO and two government-owned Israeli water companies. Meanwhile, Hillel Milwaukee said in a statement that Mone has refused to meet with Jewish students since Oct. 7. Where universities fumbled over statements addressing the Oct. 7 attacks last fall in failed bids to satisfy everyone, many campus leaders have now conceded it is easier to give in to protesters than to stand firm against their rule-breaking. (The president of the University of Wisconsin system said he is “disappointed” by UWM’s actions.) 

Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University made concessions to encampment leaders this week. At Johns Hopkins, the school pledged to undertake a “timely review” of the matter of divestment, and to conclude student conduct proceedings related to the encampment. Hopkins Justice Collective, the group that organized the protests, characterized the agreement as “a step towards Johns Hopkins’ commitment to divest from the settler colonial state of Israel.” 

In a campus-wide email on Monday, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber said all students must vacate the campus quad where they had organized an anti-Israel encampment. He offered the campus protest leaders an audience with the body that reviews petitions for divestment. Other student groups can also petition for a meeting, he wrote.

Students who were arrested during the course of the protests may have a chance to take part in a so-called “restorative justice” process, whereby the university “would work to minimize the impact of the arrest on the participating students.” If protesters take responsibility for their actions, Eisgruber wrote, the school will conclude all disciplinary processes and allow the protesters to graduate this month. 

At many more universities, top administrators — including university presidents — have met with demonstrators, giving them a chance to air their concerns even when they didn’t reach an agreement. University of Chicago administrators held several days of negotiations with encampment leaders before the talks fell apart and police cleared the protesters. The George Washington University President Ellen Granberg met over the weekend with student protesters who lectured her about “structural inequality” at GW and likened the university’s code of conduct to slavery and Jim Crow-era segregation, according to a video recording of the meeting.

College administrators’ negotiations to end the protests might bring a wave of good headlines and promises of quiet at campus commencements, the largest and most high-profile event of the year for most universities. But students haven’t said what they’ll do when school is back in session next year. 
By promising meetings with university investment committees, the administrators are almost certainly guaranteeing that campus angst over the war in Gaza will not die down. Brown University President Christina Paxson pledged that protest leaders can meet with the university’s governing body to discuss divestment from companies that operate in Israel — in October, a year after the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,200 people and ignited the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East.

Correction: This article was updated to more accurately reflect negotiations between Princeton’s president and the protesters.