The Justice Department’s newly formed Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism filed a statement of interest in court on Monday night supporting Jewish students and a professor in their case alleging that the University of California Los Angeles permitted antisemitism on campus. 

According to the suit, in the spring of 2024 UCLA violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by knowingly allowed members of an anti-Israel protest encampment to physically prevent students and faculty from accessing portions of the campus if they were wearing items that identified them as Jewish if they refused to denounce Israel. The filing comes as the task force is separately investigating the University of California system for Title VI violations. 

The brief filed on Monday marks the first time the federal government has filed a statement of interest in court to argue that a university should be held accountable for the campus antisemitism that has skyrocketed across the country since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.  

Leo Terrell, head of the antisemitism task force, said in a statement that “the President, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the Task Force know that every student must be free to attend school without being discriminated against on the basis of their race, religion or national origin.” 

The Trump administration’s new multi-agency task force to combat antisemitism announced earlier this month that it would visit 10 university campuses that have experienced an increase of antisemitic incidents. 

The task force already announced it will cut $400 million from Columbia University’s federal funding due to antisemitic demonstrations unless the university agrees to a number of conditions by Thursday. At the time, Terrell said that was “only the beginning” of university funding cuts.

A group of more than 30 House Republicans is requesting that the bill funding the State Department and other foreign affairs activities for 2021 expressly prohibit the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel out of Jerusalem.

“We respectfully request that language be included that prohibits any [Fiscal Year 2021] funding… being used to move the United States’ embassy out of Jerusalem,” the legislators, led by Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), wrote in a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

“In a time when we are seeing the increasing normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, we must ensure that the United States does not take a step backward by moving the U.S. embassy out of Jerusalem,” the letter continues.

There is not currently a significant push in Congress to relocate the embassy back to Tel Aviv, and President-elect Joe Biden has pledged not to do so. Israeli media reported last month that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had pressured Biden to change his stance on keeping the embassy in Jerusalem — and a number of President Donald Trump’s other Mideast policy moves — in exchange for the PA’s return to the negotiating table.

“Congress must ensure that America’s embassy to Israel remains in Jerusalem — the rightful capital of Israel,” Barr told JI. “This was a diplomatic victory two decades in the making when it was finally achieved in 2018. America must stand behind its most sacred ally in the region against radical assertions that Israel’s capital city is in dispute.”

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who also signed the letter, was more explicit about his concerns.

“Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem was one of this administrations’ many important foreign policy victories in the Middle East,” Banks said in a statement to JI. “Unfortunately, it’s one of many I’m worried Joe Biden will undo by returning to Obama-era policies of appeasement.”