For more than a year, elite universities in the United States have allowed antisemitism to run rampant under the guise of “social justice” and “resistance.” But now, those same institutions are facing serious financial and legal repercussions.
It turns out that antisemitism has a price – and allowing it to fester on your campus is not cheap.
Since Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, Israelis have had to live through an unprecedented war on seven fronts waged by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies. American Jews and their allies, however, have faced a different type of unprecedented battle on the campus front.
Columbia University, once a prestigious beacon of higher education, is now one of several campuses under federal investigation for its failure to protect Jewish students. Three government agencies – the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration – will scrutinize the school’s federal funding.
Additionally, Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, received a warning from the GSA that the college could lose $5 billion in active federal grants if it fails to address antisemitism on its campus.
Since October 7, Columbia has been the epicenter of violent anti-Israel protests. These demonstrations have gone far beyond free speech, as students have been harassed, assaulted, blocked from entering “liberated zones” during encampments, and threatened simply for being Jewish.
At one point, rioters at Columbia broke into Barnard College, Columbia’s affiliate, attacked security guards – sending one to the hospital – and caused over $30,000 in damage to the building.
For too long, Jewish students have been gaslit and told that their concerns were overblown, that the calls for intifada and violent resistance were just part of academic discourse. Meanwhile, administrators who pride themselves on protecting marginalized groups have not only remained conspicuously silent when it came time to defend Jewish students, but they also turned a blind eye to campus faculty who openly praised Hamas and other US-designated terrorist groups.
The federal government is now stepping in
Now, however, the federal government is stepping in. Columbia is under investigation for potential civil rights violations, and if found guilty, the financial repercussions will be enormous. A senior government official in the Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism says that the threat to pull federal funding “is as serious as can be.”
Columbia’s reputation is at serious risk because, without federal funding, the university may struggle to afford and attract top professors and could lose current faculty members to other elite institutions with better benefits.
The truth of the matter is that this is the proper way to tackle antisemitism. Universities that refuse to protect their Jewish students will now have to pay the consequences – literally. The new administration has made it clear that any school that tolerates antisemitic discrimination risks losing federal funding. Columbia, hopefully, is just the beginning.
Other elite institutions, including Harvard, Northwestern, NYU, and the University of California, Berkeley, are also now under scrutiny. A federal task force has been deployed to investigate 10 campuses notorious for antisemitic incidents. These visits are not mere fact-finding missions – they are the first steps toward real accountability.
It is astounding that it has reached the point that an elite institution could potentially lose this much money simply because it refused to take a proper stand against students who supported terror and set new records for unprecedented levels of Jew-hatred.
If Columbia does collapse under the weight of such massive financial losses, there will likely be attempts to gaslight Jews or to resurrect classic blood libels about Jewish money and control.
But the reality is that Jewish students have a civil right to receive an education without fear of discrimination or violence. Universities that fail to uphold this right should – and will – be held responsible.
For too long, antisemitism has been treated as a lesser form of hate. Now, these institutions are learning the hard way: Allowing antisemitism to thrive on campus will cost them dearly.
The writer is a co-founder and CEO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing firm that specializes in geopolitics.