Just as President Donald Trump’s administration concludes with pro-Palestinian protesters, dozens of universities across the country were warned about their obligation to protect Jewish students on campus on Monday.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote a letter to 60 agencies. Many of them have been a long-standing protest place last year, last year, and reported that they will face “potential enforcement measures” if they fail to maintain the title VI of the Civil Rights Act on Jewish Students.
That part of the law makes discrimination “based on race, color, and national origin” in any federal funding activity.
Six of the eight Ivy League institutions, including Columbia University and Harvard University, are on the list.
The move will see hundreds of protesters gather in New York City on Monday to demand the release of pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, and the court will decide whether to expel the Syrian-born man after the student’s visa has been revoked. A detention hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
At least 84 university students established protests, camps or university buildings last year as the Israeli-Hamas war roared in the Gaza Strip and protests last weeks. More than 3,000 people have been arrested, including more than 220 in Colombia, according to NBC News Tally.
Protesters had called for the government to support the invasion and air bombings of Gaza and withdraw air bombings of Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
“In a statement, McMahon said the department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear safety amid more than a year of merciless anti-Semitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life.”
“U.S. universities and universities benefit from the enormous public investment funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege and conditional on strict compliance with federal differentiation laws,” she continued.
The Education Bureau’s Civil Rights Bureau wrote to the university after Trump signed an executive order on January 29 to “fight against anti-Semitism.”
Monday’s intervention could be one of the department’s final acts as the Trump administration prepares to dismantle it and redistribute it to individual states.
The federal government cancelled a $400 million grant from Colombia, the heart of last year’s protests.
After Halil was arrested on Saturday, Palestinian Legal, a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides legal advice to Palestinian activists, called on the university not to cooperate with immigrants or customs enforcement officers in attempts to arrest and deport activists.
“The adducting and detention of students via political ideology represents a serious escalation in the McCarthy attacks on the student movement for the liberation of Palestine,” Attorney Sabiya Ahmed, Palestinian legal staff, said in a statement.
