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President Donald Trump is taking on antisemitism in schools, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The department started the week by announcing the creation of a new task force, led by the DOJ, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, that’s dedicated to investigating anti-Jewish harassment on college campuses. In an executive order titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” Trump pointed to reports of intimidation, harassment and physical threats and assault as the “unacceptable” treatment Jewish students have faced since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel.
The new task force launches amid growing concern about antisemitism on college campuses. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Antisemitism Research, 73% of Jewish students across the country say they have experienced some form of discrimination on campus during the 2023-2024 school year.
To effectively counter campus antisemitism, universities must first define it, says Alex Horn, regional director of ADL Texoma.
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Last month, Harvard University joined hundreds of other campuses, including a number of schools in the Dallas area, in adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism that is lauded by the ADL yet criticized by some free-expression advocacy groups.
The definition includes eleven examples of antisemitic bias, such as “accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust,” while also offering a non-legally binding, more general definition.
“We often encourage organizations in the DFW area to adopt the IHRA definition because it signifies a meaningful resolve to combat hate directed at the Jewish community,” Horn says. “There are a lot of folks who aren’t aware of actions that are often considered anti-Jewish, and this definition offers a clear and concise set of guidelines which sort of can help combat anti-Semitism.”
How North Texas Schools Define Antisemitism
The University of North Texas, the University of Texas Dallas and the University of Texas Arlington each list the IHRA definition of antisemitism in publicly posted student policies.
“Antisemitism means a certain perception of Jews that may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. The term includes rhetorical and physical acts of antisemitism directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals or their property or toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities,” the policy documents state.
The adopted definition is in compliance with a state executive order issued last year by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who ordered all public schools in the state to include the IHRA definition in their campus free speech policies. The governor’s order also specified that students protesting in support of Palestine had been documented chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which Abbott called an antisemitic phrase.
While the ADL defines the phrase as such, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) believes the chant should be protected free speech.
Abbott’s executive order has been challenged by FIRE and student groups at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Dallas. Last fall, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled the groups were “likely to succeed” in proving that the policies instituted after the executive order resulted in a chilling effect on free speech. Pitman declined to block Texas universities from enforcing the order while the case works its way through the court system.
Broadly, FIRE has criticized the “vague” and “broad” IHRA antisemitism definition, warning that it could allow for students to be penalized for criticisms of Israel as a nation. Already, university faculty members have reported struggling to navigate the hot-button topic.
At UT Dallas and UT Austin, respectively, 66% and 70% of professors reported that it is difficult to have “open and honest conversations” about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, FIRE’s latest campus free speech survey showed.
“It’s very chilling. Students and professors may be deterred from speaking about any topics regarding Israel for fear of being shut up under this policy,” FIRE attorney Zach Greenberg said. “We may see these classes, these discussions, maybe the [pro-Palestine] student groups who are dedicated to this issue – we see those discussions disappear or become less prominent on campus to the detriment of free exchange of ideas.”
While the IHRA definition does include some guidance on what conversations surrounding Israel as a nation should be deemed antisemitic – such as drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis and claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor – the guidance also acknowledges that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
The definition has been adopted by a number of governments, Horn added, who have nonetheless “found it possible to criticize Israeli policies and practices.”
“Different campuses are experiencing [antisemitism] in different ways,” Horn said. “[IHRA] is not an end-all be-all. So if a university were to adopt this, it wouldn’t necessarily be like, okay, check a box, we’re done. We think that there’s further education and professional development opportunities that can go alongside it. But this is a good first step.”
