University campuses have been at the center of the national discussion about antisemitism since the beginning of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war and the wave of protests and encampments that followed.However, a new Anti-Defamation League report found that while the attention on campuses was focused on students, there was far less scrutiny over what was happening behind classroom doors.The report documents allegations of professors and teaching assistants injecting anti-Israel activism into coursework, even going so far as to offer extra credit for attending anti-Israel events.
Some have been accused of singling out Jewish and Israeli students in classroom settings.While public attention has largely focused on student-led protests and demonstrations, the ADL said faculty conduct and curriculum choices occur in the "relative opacity of academic spaces," making them more difficult for outsiders to observe.FEDS OPEN PROBE INTO ANTI-ISRAEL NYC TEACHERSThe Anti-Defamation League warns in a new report that antisemitism is not only found at on-campus protests, but also in classrooms.(Drazen Zigic/iStock/Getty Images Plus)In January 2025, the ADL released a campus antisemitism report conducted in partnership with Hillel International and College Pulse, stating that 27.3% of Jewish students reported observing antisemitic behavior by faculty.
The organization noted that its January 2025 report showed that exposure to faculty engaging in antisemitic rhetoric was associated with higher perceptions of a hostile campus environment.The report points to several ways in which those dynamics have surfaced in classrooms, including course content and assigned readings, political activism and the treatment of Jewish and Israeli students.According to the ADL, there were reported instances of faculty canceling classes in order for students to attend anti-Israel protests.
The organization said that as part of a course at the University of California, Berkeley, students were allegedly offered "...