The first full month of the Trump Administration has proven consequential for addressing BDS and antisemitism. Universities and corporations continue to adjust their operations to appear in compliance with Executive Orders regarding DEI and discrimination, but lawsuits and expressions of defiance are increasing especially from faculty. Growing reports regarding discrimination against Jews within the medical profession have also included open threats of violence. These are matched by increasingly blatant defenses of anti-Israel bias and antisemitism from leaders of teachers unions.

Protests and attacks against Jews and Israelis continued in February, even after the return of the Bibas family, who had been kidnapped on October 7, 2023, and murdered in captivity. Notable examples included:

• A Super Bowl halftime performer unfurled Palestinian and Sudanese flags before being tackled and removed from the field. He has been permanently banned from all future NFL games;
• Anti-Israel protestors gathered at the premier of the latest Marvel movie, which features an Israeli actress portraying an Israeli superhero;
• Two Israelis were stabbed in Athens by a Palestinian after being overheard speaking Hebrew;
• The London headquarters of the BBC was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti;
• A Montreal synagogue was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti;
• New Zealand’s only Jewish school was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti;
• At the University of Amsterdam, pro-Hamas protestors shut down a talk by the Dutch defense minister who was forced to flee the building;
• In Sydney, a number of cars and buildings were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti;
• Pro-Hamas protestors held a march through the heavily Jewish New York City neighborhood of Borough Park;
• A pro-Hezbollah protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine in New York City was held in commemoration of Hassan Nasrallah, coinciding with his funeral in Beirut. Reports suggested most in attendance did not know who he was; and
• Various attacks on individual Jews were also reported including in Manchester (UK) and New York City. A Spanish individual mistaken for a Jew was attacked at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin by a Muslim asylum seeker.

Conversely, in an incident in Miami, a Jewish man shot two Israelis he apparently believed were Palestinians.

University Administrations

University administrations continue to deal with the implications of Trump Administration Executive Orders and other changes.

A variety of lawsuits have been filed by universities to block various administration moves, including defunding USAID and Department of Education programs, as well as dismantling DEI at many levels. Universities have also announced new financial oversight, hiring freezes, and other measures.

Universities continue to make it clear that divestment is dead.

The latest example was Boston University announcing that it would not consider divesting from Israel. Universities are also being forced to give the appearance of cracking down further on Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.

The UCLA chapter was suspended after members vandalized the home of a university trustee and threatened his family. Chapters at McMaster University, the University of Michigan, and Rowan University were also suspended with the University of Pittsburgh considering similar sanctions. The Rowan University chapter, however, was quickly reinstated while the Michigan group held a rally off-campus. The SJP at Chapman University was also stripped of its Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Award.

In an unusual move, Barnard College expelled two unidentified students who were involved in disrupting a Columbia class on Israel, in violation of the school’s policies — and universities continue to revise policies to address pro-Hamas encampments and building takeovers.

Court cases against student and associated protestors are also proceeding:

• The trial of eight former CUNY students facing felony charges after being arrested at an encampment was adjourned by New York Supreme Civil Court. Plea deal negotiations continue in advance of a May trial date;
• A Federal judge has allowed a suit filed by Jewish students against Cooper Union to proceed. The students had been trapped in a library by protestors. The judge commented that “These events took place in 2023—not 1943—and Title VI places responsibility on colleges and universities to protect their Jewish students from harassment, not on those students to hide themselves away in a proverbial attic or attempt to escape from a place they have a right to be;” and
• Eleven students from Case Western Reserve University were indicted for causing over $400,000 damage to university property during a protest;

But university capitulations to pro-Hamas protestors also continued in February:

• Columbia University added “anti-Palestinian discrimination” to its list of proscribed behaviors. The terms is typically used in secondary and higher education concerns to mean that questioning any Palestinian narratives such as the “Nakba” is de facto evidence of racist discrimination;
• The University of Washington announced formation of a “Palestine Studies” committee. The creation of “Palestine Studies” had been a specific demand of pro-Hamas protestors who had vandalized the campus in 2024. A university official claimed the institution “seeks to deepen our tri-campus expertise in the scholarship of Palestine, across the range of existing academic units;”
• Hunter College announced a search for a “Palestinian Studies” specialist with expertise in “settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender and sexuality.” The job listing added the “Ideal candidates will also have a record of public engagement and community action.” After news reports New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the listing removed and called for “a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom.” Faculty members then complained about the Hunter’s “climate of fear” and Hochul’s “unprecedented overstep in authority;”

Conversely, after a two year investigation, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights found that George Washington University had retaliated against Jewish students who had filed complaints against psychology professor Lara Sheehi. The students had been placed under remediation when they complained about Sheehi’s classroom expressions of hatred for Israel. Sheehi has since moved to an institution in Qatar.

Internationally, an extensive survey of Jewish students at British universities revealed widespread incidents of harassment and intimidation with verbal abuse, assault, and discrimination commonplace. University officials claimed to be “deeply troubled” by the report, as was Education Secretary Bridgit Phillipson.

Faculty

Efforts to aid pro-Hamas protestors by individual faculty members and organizations continued in February. One example was legal support offered to protestors charged with blocking access roads to O’Hare Airport by Northwestern University’s Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic. The university’s support for the protestors is now the subject of a lawsuit, which alleges the institution is misusing public funds.

Other expressions of faculty defiance regarding Israel and Jews were common in February:

• New York University faculty and alums expressed opposition to student sanctions and university regulations;
• Jewish faculty at Columbia University issued a public statement decrying the Trump Administration’s policies including on antisemitism and campus support for Hamas;
• The George Washington University faculty senate endorsed lightening disciplinary measures aimed at pro-Hamas students who disrupted campus in 2024.

Faculty members and programs continue to promote anti-Israel viewpoints inside and outside the classroom, thereby lending them respectability and worsening campus environments:

• A webinar on UNRWA pushing an anti-Israel narrative included a Rutgers University faculty member;
• The Wayne State University Center for Gender and Sexuality promoted “Poems for Palestine,” which included a poem “How I Kill Soldiers;”
• A Columbia University astronomy lab section taught by a graduate student “accidentally” included material on “genocide in Palestine;”
• The University of California at Santa Cruz Education Department held sponsored a talk, “Centering an Anti-Zionist Commitment in (Early Childhood) Teacher Education.”

A recent study noted that one reason why universities have been increasingly radicalized is that significant numbers of faculty members have been hired through diversity-focused fellow-to-faculty models. These effectively bypass departmental and college hiring mechanisms and place “scholar-activists” into tenure track positions as means to rectify alleged race and gender imbalances.

Discriminatory efforts aimed at Israelis, Jews, and supporters of Israel continued in February. A report by Israel’s Association of University Heads indicates some 500 complaints have been filed by Israeli academics since October 7th regarding boycotts and discrimination.

Cooperation with Spanish universities has halted completely while Dutch and Belgian universities announced the end of agreements with Israeli counterparts. Severe difficulties in publishing in academic journals and books was also reported, as was receiving funding from overseas sources. The report also suggested that negative faculty reactions to the Trump Administration may spur additional discrimination from American academics.

An institutional boycott of Israel and Israeli scholars was announced by the University of Iceland School of Education. Cancelation of pro-Israel scholars continue, such as the removal of an Israeli researcher from an international astrophysics project.

Another example emerged in Finland where talks by a specialist on anti-Zionism in Russia were canceled after protests by pro-Palestinian factions. More positively, the International Studies Association defeated a BDS resolution.

Students

Protests and other actions against Israel and Jews continue to be staged by students:

• The Columbia SJP chapter, which has been banned from campus, held an event in a neighborhood church. Posters for the event asked attendees “Want to learn how to “un-live Jews?” Columbia University condemned the event;
• Anti-Israel students occupied a building at Bowdoin College. After brief negotiations, the students were given an ultimatum, removed from the building, suspended, and required to vacate campus. The student newspaper reprimanded the administration for its actions and a walkout was held in support of the students. The suspensions were then lifted;
• Anti-Israel students at Swarthmore College occupied a campus building. Reports indicate that students vacated the building after being informed that administration had been contacted by the FBI. The SJP chapter was temporarily suspended as were eight students;
• A building at McGill University was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti;
• A building at the University of British Columbia was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti;
• A building was occupied at Sciences Po Strasbourg;
• A job fair at Mount Holyoke College was disrupted by the University of Massachusetts SJP chapter;
• A board of trustees meeting at the University of Minnesota was disrupted. The University of Minnesota”Diversity Coalition,” which includes various socialist, communist and pro-Hamas organizations; and
• At Leicester University pro-Hamas students continued a hunger strike.

In response to the Trump Administration’s stated goal of identifying and deporting foreign students expressing support for Hamas and terrorism, reports indicate that more students are scrubbing their social media and other online evidence.

Despite the nearly complete shutdown of divestment by university administrations, BDS resolutions, referendums, and demands for financial disclosure continue to be debated and passed by student governments, including Harvard Law School, Michigan State University, Boston University, Concordia University, and the University of Connecticut.

The 2024 capitulation by the University of Windsor, which has no investments in Israel, to its pro-Hamas encampment is also now the subject of litigation. Other Canadian universities have rejected BDS proposals, but the campaigns have become increasing radical and pro-Hamas. At San Jose State University the student government voted to demand an end its study abroad program at the University of Haifa.

K-12

Efforts to transform secondary education by centering anti-Zionism and thus antisemitism as part of “anticolonial” and “ethnic studies” continue to intensify.

Some districts, such as the Shoreline Public School District in King County, Washington, are publicly redoubling their commitment to DEI, ethnic studies, and partnerships with organizations such as CAIR.

Teachers unions also continue to be at the forefront of anti-Israel pedagogy.

Testimony by the head of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) before the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism, was marked by continual denials of antisemitic content or intent, despite materials being projected during the hearing. Merrie Najimy of the MTA Rank and File for Palestine, accused the commission of “anti-Palestinian racism” during the hearing and claimed a Jewish child would be welcome in Gaza.

After the incident received national attention, the MTA agreed to remove materials from its website but Page and Najimy redoubled their complaints about “cherrypicked” materials and calls for educators to “teach Palestine.’” The MTA Rank and File for Palestine was also permitted to table at the union’s winter conference.

Teacher training also remains a key area for anti-Israel indoctrination including specifically on antisemitism:

• The United Teachers Los Angeles union contracted with PARCEO, which has developed a Curriculum on Antisemitism From a Perspective of Collective Liberation. The curriculum, developed by an individual who had previous developed “Nakba” materials, focuses exclusively on right wing and Christian nationalist antisemitism, and ignores left wing and Muslim antisemitism. It also specifically states that anti-Zionism cannot be antisemitism;
• The National Education Association-Educators for Palestine held a webinar on the “A to Z (from apartheid to Zionism”) of “educator activism” and “educators advocating for the liberation of Palestine and other related important topics around justice in education spaces;”
• The NYC Educators for Palestine collective advertised the “The People’s Fair for Gaza”, to raise money for Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), which has been alleged to have links to terror; and
• A bill introduced into the New Hampshire House of Representatives would require Holocaust education including “5 hours of study to include, at minimum, instruction on the United Nations (UN) definition of genocide, the UN resolution on human rights, the Holocaust (and other Nazi committed genocides), the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the genocide of indigenous peoples in the United States, and the Palestinian genocide;”

After a length period of litigation, the Santa Ana Unified School District reached a settlement and agreed to stop using antisemitic ethnic studies materials. The lawsuit had also alleged harassment and bullying of students, and it was revealed that the “Ethnic Studies Steering Committee” had deliberately held meetings on Jewish holidays to limit input and derided concerned Jewish parents as “racists.”

In partial response to the continuing crises over ethnic studies in California, state legislators have now introduced a bill to create statewide standards for teachers, along with provisions for greater transparency.

Despite continued focus on anti-Israel and antisemitic content in secondary education, including increasing attention to sources such as the Qatar Foundation, the negative effects on students appears unabated.

Recent polls showing significant increases in antisemitism among younger people demonstrates the impact of education. While other polls suggest that the majority Americans remain opposed to antisemitism, Hamas, and calls for Israel to be exterminated, a growing number regard boycotts as legitimate.