Federal Inquiry into Antisemitism at Johns Hopkins University

The Department of Education announced that Johns Hopkins University has become the latest school to face a federal antisemitism inquiry after a complaint alleged that Jewish students were being made to feel “unwelcome and unsafe” on campus.

Colleges and universities nationwide are being caught in a crossfire of scrutiny from both the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and the House Education and Workforce Committee over their responses to campus antisemitism since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7.

The complaint, which was filed by Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Dr. Zachary Marschall, claims that the Baltimore, Maryland, university has failed to respond adequately to antisemitism on campus.

The civil rights probe was opened on Monday, according to the Washington Examiner.

The outlet reported that Marschall has made similar complaints about other schools in the past, prompting a federal investigation into Northwestern University last month.

Marschall’s complaint against Johns Hopkins alleges that the school has not done enough to respond to harassment incidents of Jewish students, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Citing Marschall’s filing, the Examiner reported that the university’s response to the harassment allegedly made Jewish students feel “unwelcome and unsafe.”

In November, Campus Reform reported that the Council on American-Islamic Relations published a press release which praised more than 24 Johns Hopkins faculty members who called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Later in November, Teachers and Researchers United, a Johns Hopkins graduate student workers union, also called for a ceasefire in an open letter, according to the Baltimore Banner.

“We express our uncompromising solidarity with the Palestinian people in their righteous struggle for self-determination,” the Teachers and Researchers United letter said. “We call for stopping the routing of workers’ exploited labor and money into funding the U.S. military, which directly supports and contributes to the genocide of Palestinians. We decry Johns Hopkins’ inadequate response along with the silence of the academic community and Western institutions at large in the face of the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. This silence is fueling the continued violent oppression of the Palestinian people. It is imperative we act now.”

Johns Hopkins is not the only school being investigated on the federal level.

On Monday, House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., sent a request to Columbia University for documents related to the school’s response to antisemitism on campus.

“An environment of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at Columbia for more than two decades before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack,” Foxx wrote in the letter, adding that, although Columbia has suspended some anti-Israel groups, they “have continued to hold anti-Israel events on campus with apparent impunity.”

Foxx has not shied away from wielding subpoena power against uncooperative schools and has sent similar letters to other universities under investigation, including Harvard last week.