\n<\/p>\n
The Department of Justice said Tuesday that George Washington University was \u201cdeliberately indifferent\u201d toward Jewish students and faculty who said they faced antisemitic harassment and had violated federal civil rights law that bars discrimination based on race and national origin.<\/p>\n
The four-page letter signals that George Washington could be the next university in the Trump administration\u2019s crosshairs. The DOJ sent a similar letter to the University of California, Los Angeles, late last month, and then various federal agencies froze more than $500\u00a0million in federal grants at the university. Since then, the Trump administration has demanded $1\u00a0billion from the UC system to resolve the dispute\u2014a move the state\u2019s governor called \u201cextortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
GW was one of 10 universities that a federal task force to combat antisemitism had planned to visit and investigate. That list included UCLA and Harvard and Columbia Universities, which also have been targeted by the Trump administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, wrote in the letter that the department plans to enforce its findings unless the university agrees to a voluntary resolution agreement to address the agency\u2019s concerns. She didn\u2019t detail what such an agreement would entail or what enforcement might look like.<\/p>\n
The department\u2019s allegations largely center on how the university responded\u2014or didn\u2019t\u2014to a spring 2024 encampment established to protest the war in Gaza. The university ultimately called in D.C. police to clear the demonstration after it persisted for nearly two weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of the agitators\u2019 efforts was to frighten, intimidate, and deny Jewish, Israeli, and American-Israeli students free and unfettered access to GWU\u2019s educational environment,\u201d Dhillon wrote. \u201cThis is the definition of hostility and a \u2018hostile environment.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She also wrote that university officials \u201ctook no meaningful action\u201d in the face of at least eight complaints alleging that demonstrators at the encampment were discriminating against students because they were Jewish or Israeli.\u00a0<\/p>\n
George Washington spokesperson Shannon McClendon said in a statement that university officials were reviewing the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cGW condemns antisemitism, which has absolutely no place on our campuses or in a civil and humane society,\u201d McClendon said. \u201cMoreover, our actions clearly demonstrate our commitment to addressing antisemitic actions and promoting an inclusive campus environment by upholding a safe, respectful, and accountable environment. We have taken appropriate action under university policy and the law to hold individuals or organizations accountable, including during the encampment, and we do not tolerate behavior that threatens our community or undermines meaningful dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Justice said Tuesday that George Washington University was \u201cdeliberately indifferent\u201d toward Jewish students and faculty who said they faced antisemitic harassment and had violated federal civil rights law that bars discrimination based on race and national origin. The four-page letter signals that George Washington could be the next university in the Trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2346,319,1072,175,702,7829,5118],"class_list":{"0":"post-15696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-civil","9":"tag-federal","10":"tag-george","11":"tag-law","12":"tag-rights","13":"tag-violated","14":"tag-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}