The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent warning letters to 60 universities for antisemitic discrimination — including Northwestern. The letters inform universities of potential enforcement actions if they do not adhere to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects Jewish students.
Title VI prohibits any institution that receives federal funds from discriminating and harassing on the basis of race, color, national origin and shared ancestry, which includes Jewish ancestry, the Education Department wrote in its press release earlier today.
The letters follow the Education Department’s and Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism’s decision to cancel $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University last week. Officials cited Columbia’s “continued inaction to protect Jewish students from discrimination,” the department wrote today.
The department has already launched an investigation into antisemitism at NU as well as four other schools under President Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order. Those include Columbia University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The additional 55 universities who received a letter today are under investigation, or are monitoring complaints filed with the DOE’s OCR, the press release read.
On Friday, OCR ordered enforcement staff to prioritize resolving a backlog of antisemitism complaints, many of which the Education Department wrote were left “unresolved by the previous administration.”
Institutions receiving federal funding may face potential loss of funding if they fail to comply with Title VI, the letter wrote.
The University has not yet publicly responded to the investigation or the letter at the time of publication.
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