After anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza upended college campuses last year, many universities set up task forces to examine whether antisemitism 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 by D.E.I. programs, rather than protected by them.
The task force reports reflected a growing tension on college campuses: How do Jews fit into diversity and inclusion programs on campuses?
Many Jewish campus leaders and students say they do not, but should. Some have argued that the programs have focused on Black, Hispanic and other student groups, and not on Jewish students who face antisemitic slurs, threats and occasional violence.
D.E.I. offices have been under a withering ideological attack recently over concerns that they pit different groups against one another. More than 200 colleges over the last two years have pared back diversity efforts, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which tracks the backlash. Many have closed offices altogether, and 14 states have passed legislation banning or restricting D.E.I.
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 dismantle federal programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. On his second day, he ordered federal agencies to look for “illegal discrimination and preferences, including D.E.I.,” in the private sector, including colleges and universities.
Conservatives for decades have criticized identity-based programming in higher education and American society. Their attacks have been especially potent as they have found new allies among some members of the Jewish community, who say D.E.I. offices have been inattentive, or even hostile, to their needs, especially during anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza.
Others have defended the programs as essential to making campuses safer and welcoming to all, including Jewish students.
Several episodes in recent months have highlighted a tension between diversity efforts and some Jewish students and faculty.
At the University of Michigan, a diversity administrator was fired last month after she was accused of making antisemitic statements. Two Jewish professors from other universities said they asked her if the D.E.I. office worked with Jewish students. They said that she responded by saying the university is “controlled by wealthy Jews.” Through a lawyer, the administrator denied making the comments.
At a diversity and inclusion conference for private schools in Colorado, some speakers characterized the war in Gaza as a genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel as racist. Leaders of several Jewish organizations said the comments were antisemitic, and the private schools group apologized. One speaker argued that the critics who complained of antisemitism were “watering down its meaning.”
At the University of Pittsburgh, the diversity office held a training to explore antisemitic tropes and support Jewish students. It was the kind of event that some Jewish critics of diversity programs have often requested. But pro-Palestinian activists showed up, passing out fliers criticizing the group holding the training.
An associate professor in attendance, Andrea Beth Goldschmidt, said members of the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion office did not acknowledge the interruption.
She later wrote an essay titled, “DEI: Deflect, excuse, ignore?”
Who Is D.E.I. For?
Campuses have set up all manner of programs to achieve their diversity goals. They include trainings on racism and sexism, efforts to hire a more diverse faculty, identity-based affinity groups and mentorships.
Usually, the aim is to improve graduation rates and other measures of success, though it is hard to gauge the effectiveness of these efforts because of their variety. Programs focus on groups that have been less represented, including Black and Hispanic students.
Some D.E.I. offices have authority over civil rights and bias complaints. But the campus conflicts unleashed by the war in the Middle East have often dwarfed 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 walking to a Shabbat dinner wearing a kipa when he heard a student in a group say, “Look, a Jew!” while others laughed. Mr. Goodwin said he confronted the group, then sought help from the D.E.I. office, which informed him that he should file a complaint but that there wasn’t anything it could do.
“Other students who attend the university made another student feel excluded and ostracized,” Mr. Goodwin said, adding that the university “should potentially have a conversation with them.”
Later, when Mr. Goodwin was called a slur, he said he didn’t bother reporting it.
“We don’t have any expectation that this office will provide for us,” he said.
The university said in a statement that it has zero tolerance for antisemitism and takes concerns from students seriously.
Muslim students and faculty have also criticized D.E.I. offices for not being responsive. At several campuses where conservative groups posted the names and faces of pro-Palestinian students on social media and on billboard trucks, the students said they felt universities did little to protect them.
Revamping D.E.I.
Some Jewish leaders would like to eliminate D.E.I. programs altogether. They say the programs too often reinforce the idea that Palestinians are oppressed and pro-Israeli Jews are oppressors. This ignores the complicated and painful history of antisemitism that preceded Israel’s founding in the first place, they argue, and that Jews, too, can be the victim of slurs and harassment.
But many others support D.E.I. They just would like it to be more sensitive to Jewish students. The Stanford University antisemitism committee report recently concluded that schools should, in the short term, find ways to embrace Jews in D.E.I. programming, before ultimately moving toward more “pluralistic” efforts that include everyone.
Still others view the attacks on D.E.I. as baseless. They say without D.E.I. programming — training students about discrimination, for example — Jewish students would be worse off.
Jonathan Feingold, an associate professor of law at Boston University who studies affirmative action, has argued D.E.I. can be the remedy to antisemitism on campuses. The types of programming that antisemitism task forces have recommended would be barred if colleges didn’t consider identity, he noted. So might the task forces themselves.
“If a G.O.P.-controlled federal government bans D.E.I. nationwide,” he said, “that will cripple universities’ ability to meaningfully counter and remedy antisemitism on campus.”
At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Goldschmidt said in an email that she believed the disrupted antisemitism training was a missed opportunity. She 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 be allowed to define what constitutes discrimination against our community.”
A university official who was in the room said that the disruption lasted less than a minute and involved no more than five people silently handing out fliers criticizing the American Jewish Committee, the group that led the training, for supporting Israel. The official said the presenter continued speaking and that a D.E.I. official acknowledging the incident would have interrupted the speaker.
Some schools have started new programming for Jewish students. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a bill that effectively requires all California State University institutions and community colleges to include recognizing discrimination against Jews in trainings.
The same month, the University of Pennsylvania became the first university to create an office for civil rights complaints related to shared 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 antisemitism on campus.)
One word that emerged in several antisemitism reports to describe what D.E.I. programs should strive for was “pluralism.”
Nicholas Lemann, a Columbia professor and co-chairman of the university’s antisemitism task force, said they “would like it to be made clearer to Jewish students that the D.E.I. offices’ doors are wide open to them.”
And Paul Brest, a professor emeritus at Stanford and a member of the university’s antisemitism committee, said D.E.I. programs “shouldn’t be based on identity.” Rather, he said, “they should be aimed at including everyone.”
But some supporters of D.E.I. wonder whether making it for “everyone” ignores a key purpose of its creation: steering limited resources to where they are most needed.
Jerry Kang, who was the founding vice chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of California, Los Angeles, likened his role to that of a gardener. Making sure all his plants flourish doesn’t mean watering them all equally, he said.
Groups like first-generation students facing culture shock, women experiencing bias in engineering programs, or Jewish students worried about antisemitism each require unique approaches, he said.
“Identity actually does matter,” Professor Kang said, “whether we like it or not.”
Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.
