After anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza roiled college campuses last year, several universities created task forces to examine whether anti-Semitism was on the rise.
The answer was yes. But one of the factors they identified was perhaps surprising: diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Reports from Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania found that Jewish students sometimes felt excluded from DEI programs, rather than protected by them.
The task force’s reports reflected a growing tension on college campuses: How do Jews fit into campus diversity and inclusion programs?
Many Jewish campus leaders and students say they don’t, but they should. Some argued that the programs focused on Black, Hispanic and other student groups rather than Jewish students who face anti-Semitic slurs, threats and occasional violence.
DEI offices have come under a withering ideological attack recently over concerns that they are pitting different groups against each other. More than 200 colleges in the past two years have reversed diversity efforts, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which tracks the backlash. Many have closed their offices and 14 states have passed legislation banning or restricting DEI
Colleges are now bracing for further crackdowns under a second Trump administration. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order to eliminate federal programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. On his second day, he ordered federal agencies to look for “unlawful discrimination and preferences, including DEI,” in the private sector, including colleges and universities.
Conservatives have for decades criticized identity-based programming in higher education and American society. Their attacks have been especially powerful as they have found new allies among some members of the Jewish community, who say DEI offices have been inattentive, or even hostile, to their needs, especially during protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Others have defended the programs as necessary to make college campuses safer and more welcoming for all, including Jewish students.
Several incidents in recent months have highlighted a tension between diversity efforts and some Jewish students and faculty.
At the University of Michigan, a diversity manager was fired last month after she was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks. Two Jewish professors from other universities said they asked her if the DEI office worked with Jewish students. They said he responded by saying the university was “controlled by rich Jews”. Through a lawyer, the administrator denied making the comments.
At a diversity and inclusion conference for private schools in Colorado, some speakers called the war in Gaza genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel racist. Leaders of several Jewish organizations said the comments were anti-Semitic, and the private school group apologized. One speaker argued that critics who complained about anti-Semitism were “shaking away the meaning of it”.
At the University of Pittsburgh, the diversity office held a training to explore anti-Semitic tropes and advocate for Jewish students. It was the kind of event that some Jewish critics of diversity programs often called for. But pro-Palestinian activists showed up, handing out leaflets criticizing the group conducting the training.
An associate professor who attended, Andrea Beth Goldschmidt, said members of the university’s office of diversity, equity and inclusion did not acknowledge the disruption.
He later wrote an essay titled “DEI: Deflect, excuse, ignore?”
Who is DEI for?
College campuses have created all kinds of programs to achieve their diversity goals. They include trainings on racism and sexism, efforts to recruit a more diverse faculty, identity-based affinity groups and mentoring.
Typically, the goal is to improve graduation rates and other measures of success, although it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these efforts because of their diversity. Programs focus on underrepresented groups, including Black and Hispanic students.
Certain DEI offices have authority over civil rights and bias complaints. But the conflicts on college campuses unleashed by war in the Middle East have often reduced the scope of what the offices are set up to handle. Many lack the expertise or authority to handle legally sensitive complaints.
During his freshman year, Asher Goodwin, a student at the University of Pittsburgh, was attending a Shabbat dinner wearing a kippah when he heard a student in a group say, “Look, a Jew!” while others laughed. Mr. Goodwin said he confronted the group and then sought help from the DEI office, which told him he should file a complaint, but that there was nothing he could do.
“Other students attending the university made another student feel excluded and ostracized,” said Mr. Goodwin, adding that the university “may need to have a conversation with them.”
Later, when Mr. Goodwin called it an insult, said he didn’t bother to report it.
“We have no expectation that this office will deliver,” he said.
The university said in a statement that it has zero tolerance for anti-Semitism and takes student concerns seriously.
Muslim students and professors have also criticized PPC offices for being unresponsive. On several campuses where conservative groups posted the names and faces of pro-Palestinian students on social media and on billboard trucks, students said they felt the universities did little to protect them.
Reform of PPC
Some Jewish leaders would like to abolish DEI programs altogether. They say the programs too often reinforce the idea that Palestinians are oppressed and pro-Israel Jews are oppressors. This ignores the complex and painful history of anti-Semitism that preceded Israel’s founding in the first place, they argue, and that Jews, too, can be victims of insults and harassment.
But many others support PPC They just wish it was more sensitive to Jewish students. The report by Stanford University’s anti-Semitism committee recently concluded that schools should, in the short term, find ways to embrace Jews in DEI programming before eventually moving toward more “pluralistic” and inclusive efforts.
Still others consider the attacks on PPC unfounded. They say that without DEI programming — for example, educating students about discrimination — Jewish students would be worse off.
Jonathan Feingold, an associate professor of law at Boston University who studies affirmative action, has argued that DEI can be the cure for anti-Semitism on college campuses. The types of programming that task forces on anti-Semitism have recommended would be precluded if colleges did not consider identity, he noted. So can the working groups themselves.
“If a GOP-controlled federal government bans DEI nationally,” he said, “it will cripple the ability of universities to effectively address and remedy anti-Semitism on campus.”
At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Goldschmidt said in an email that she believed the disrupted anti-Semitism education was a missed opportunity. He wrote that diversity officers should have shown “that they apply the same standards and expectations to the Jewish community as they do to other marginalized groups – namely that we are allowed to define what constitutes discrimination against our community”.
A university official in the room said the disturbance lasted less than a minute and involved no more than five people silently handing out leaflets criticizing the American Jewish Committee, the group that led the training, for supporting Israel. The official said the presenter continued to speak and a PPC employee recognizing the incident would interrupt the speaker.
Some schools have started new programming for Jewish students. In September, Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed a bill that essentially requires all California State University institutions and community colleges to include recognition of anti-Jewish discrimination in education.
That same month, the University of Pennsylvania became the first university to create an office for civil rights complaints related to common ancestry, ethnicity, or religion. (The school’s president resigned in 2023 after testifying before congressional leaders who accused her of not doing enough to stop anti-Semitism on campus.)
A word that came up in several anti-Semitism reports to describe what DEI’s programs should aim for was “pluralism.”
Nicholas Lemann, a Columbia professor and co-chair of the university’s anti-Semitism task force, said they “would like to make it more clear to Jewish students that the doors of the DEI offices are wide open to them.”
And Paul Brest, professor emeritus at Stanford and a member of the university’s anti-Semitism committee, said DEI programs “shouldn’t be based on identity.” Instead, he said, “they should aim to be inclusive.”
But some DEI advocates wonder whether making it for “everyone” ignores a key purpose of its creation: to direct scarce resources where they are most needed.
Jerry Kang, who was the founding vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion at UCLA, likened his role to that of a gardener. Making sure all his plants are blooming doesn’t mean watering them all equally, he said.
Groups such as first-generation college students facing culture shock, women experiencing bias in engineering programs or Jewish students concerned about anti-Semitism require unique approaches, he said.
“Identity really matters,” Professor Kang said, “whether we like it or not.
Sharon Otterman contributed to the report.
