Campus Watch May 22, 2025

Trump Admin Says Columbia Violated Federal Law in Handling of Antisemitism on Campus

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on May 22 that its Office of Civil Rights (OCR) had concluded that Columbia University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as the university had acted “with deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment of Jewish students from October 7, 2023, through the present.”

OCR had concluded that, among other things, the university failed to enforce its time, place and manner restrictions and properly follow its procedures when it came to handling reports of antisemitism. “The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” Anthony Archeval, Acting Director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS said in a statement. “We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students.”

The university said in a May 23 statement, “We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government … We take these issues seriously and will work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education to address them.”

GWU Bars Commencement Speaker from Campus After Making Anti-Israel Remarks

George Washington University (GWU) announced on May 19 that it has barred a student commencement speaker from campus after the speaker made anti-Israel remarks during her address.

The speaker, Cecilia Culver, said in her commencement speech to the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, per Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA): “For over a year, we have watched a genocide be committed against Palestinians … I am ashamed that my own tuition is being used to fund genocide.”

The university said in a May 19 statement that Culver’s submitted and rehearsed remarks were “very different” and that she “has been barred from all GW’s campuses and sponsored events elsewhere.” A review of the matter is ongoing.

Columbia Grad Accuses Student Paper of Firing Her “For Being an Orthodox Jew”

Eliana Goldin, a recent graduate of Columbia University, accused The Columbia Daily Spectator of firing her “for being an Orthodox Jew” in a viral thread on X on May 20.

Goldin explained in her thread that she had been a staff writer for two years and then became a senior staff writer; she had taken a break in Sept. 2023, and then returned as a columnist for the paper in Feb. 2024 to discuss “common ground” between Jews and Palestinians. Her column was canceled after an old poll of hers asking “would you k*ll someone for Amalek,” surfaced on social media, prompting accusations that she was calling for the death of Palestinians. Goldin explained to the Spectator that “the question of Amalek is akin to the Binding of Isaac — a Jewish thought experiment on whether you would go against your own personal morality to follow God’s morality” and was unrelated to the Palestinians, but the editors were unmoved. They subsequently published “an op-ed a few days later that said a Columbia student (me) was calling for the deaths of Palestinians on campus, and they linked to my Instagram poll.” Goldin further told The Forward that the answer to her poll was an obvious “no.”

Milène Klein, the deputy editorial page director of the Spectator, told The Forward that her column was canceled for safety reasons due to “the extreme amount of harassment that she was receiving and the fear that she was expressing,” and that Goldin wasn’t fired, as she was a contributor, not a staff member. Goldin “was welcome to continue writing op-eds for Spectator,” claimed Klein, who is Jewish. Goldin did co-author another op-ed for the paper in July 2024.

Goldin replied on X: “The Spectator claims they fired me to ‘protect’ me. If that was true, they wouldn’t have published the very thing that put me in danger in the first place. When Spec fired me, they put me more in danger by tacitly confirming lies and fueling rumors.”

Dartmouth Rejects BDS Proposal

Dartmouth College’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility rejected a divestment proposal on May 20 that called on the college to divest from six arms manufacturers that conduct business with Israel.

The Dartmouth reported that the committee concluded that the proposal did not meet their five-point criteria for passage, which included that it receives consensus from the community and that it did not “sufficiently engage the matter of whether its suggested divestment would facilitate additional dialogue on campus.” Dartmouth Divest for Palestine, the anti-Israel coalition behind the proposal, told The Dartmouth that they were “disappointed,” as “such investments are not in keeping with Dartmouth’s academic mission and its responsibility to its community and the broader world.”