New Report Maps Weaponization of Antisemitism Claims to Repress Campus Speech
Weaponized allegations of antisemitism driven by pro-Israel groups have been central to attacks on campus speech—including the Trump administration’s brazen war on higher education—over the past two years, according to a new report jointly published today by the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association.
The report, “Discriminating Against Dissent: The Weaponization of Civil Rights Law to Repress Campus Speech on Palestine,” is the first systematic empirical study of government investigations and private lawsuits against US colleges and universities alleging antisemitism under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“The findings in this report underscore how the Civil Rights Act of 1964—which passed in response to years of nonviolent civil disobedience against racial injustice—is being cynically misused to squash political dissent and speech that advocates for the human rights of Palestinians,” said AAUP General Counsel Veena Dubal. “This is a perverse outcome.”
The report documents the surge in investigations since October 7, 2023, with more opened in the last two months of 2023 (25) than in all previous years combined (24). Investigations broke record numbers in 2024 (39) and are on track to do so again in 2025 (with 38 as of September 30).
Most investigations are prompted by complaints received from the public, including people who have no relationship with the schools under investigation. All but one of the 102 antisemitism complaint letters analyzed focus on speech critical of Israel; of these, 80 percent describe speech critical of Israel or Zionism with no reference to Jews or Judaism as antisemitism; 50 percent of the complaints consist solely of such criticism.
“Our members, because of their expertise on the region, have long borne the brunt of allegations that falsely equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism,” said MESA President Aslı Bâli. “Complaints like these penalize scholars for teaching basic facts about the region.”
The explosion in antisemitism investigations has been largely driven by a handful of pro-Israel and right-wing organizations; such groups were involved in 78 percent of complaints leading to investigations.
The rise in antisemitism investigations coincided with a sharp decrease in investigations for racial harassment against African Americans, Native Americans, and other federally recognized racial minorities. Between October 7, 2023, and the end of 2024, the Biden administration opened more antisemitism probes against colleges and universities (65) than for all other types of racial harassment combined (38). While racial harassment complaints against all schools dipped by 6 percent from FY 2023 to FY 2024, the number of investigations actually opened dropped by 18 percent. The Trump administration has ceased racial harassment investigations altogether, part of its broader dismantling of the Department of Education.
Federal antisemitism investigations in the final year of the Biden administration pressured over twenty schools to accept deals in which they agreed to sweeping policy changes such as handing over extensive data on internal antisemitism complaints—including the names of accusers and accused.
The report also analyzes the twenty-eight Title VI antisemitism lawsuits filed to date by pro-Israel groups against universities in federal courts. Although no case has yet resulted in a final judgment for plaintiffs, some have resulted in settlements implementing even more draconian policy changes than government investigations.
Finally, the report analyzes the work of the Trump administration’s multi-agency Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, including its pretextual use of antisemitism allegations to cut federal funding to universities and the coercive agreements it has extracted from Columbia and Brown Universities. The report also describes the backgrounds and agendas of key players in the Trump administration’s war on higher education.