Middlebury College is among 60 higher education institutions that received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education on Monday, warning of “potential enforcement actions” if the schools do not take sufficient action to protect Jewish students on their campuses.
“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year. University leaders must do better,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a press release.
Citing Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion or gender, McMahon said public investment in institutions of higher education is “a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”
Jon Reidel, director of media relations for Middlebury College, said the college received notice of the investigation in March 2024 and received a subsequent letter from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights Tuesday. Middlebury College has and will continue to cooperate with the investigation, Reidel said in an emailed statement.
“We are committed to our educational mission, and that includes supporting all students with no tolerance for discriminatory behavior on our campus,” Reidel wrote.
All universities and colleges who received the letter are currently under investigation for antisemitic discrimination and harassment under Title VI, according to the Department of Education’s press release.
Another missive
Middlebury is also one of many universities and colleges across the country that received an open letter last week from the American Civil Liberties Union. The letter addresses two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that demonstrate the current administration is attempting to corrode principles of academic freedom in the U.S., according to Harrison Stark, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
“The letter outlined a number of principles that we urged colleges and universities to uphold, and also drew their attention to legal protections and legal obligations that are already in place that require them and hopefully empower them to protect their students from the kind of federal pressure that we’re seeing this administration threaten against colleges and universities,” Stark said.
According to the letter, both Executive Orders 14161 and 14188 — titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and other National Security and Public Safety Threats” and “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” respectively — aim to target non-U.S. citizens on college campuses for using their First Amendment rights, under which everyone in the U.S. is protected by regardless of citizenship or immigration status.
The letter urged universities and colleges to maintain freedom of expression, avoid acting as immigration law enforcement, and reject “baseless calls to investigate or punish international and immigrant communities for exercising their fundamental rights.”
Stark said the current administration has not demonstrated concern for civil rights enforcement given the dismantling of the Department of Education, including the Office of Civil Rights, and targeting DEI policies, which attempt to combat discrimination based on race, religion, gender and ethnicity.
While recognizing concerns of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on college campuses, Stark said the Trump administration has taken advantage of the investigative arm of Title VI and threats to withdraw federal funding to target institutions that permit free speech the administration opposes.
“This administration is clearly using the investigative power of the federal government, including its enforcement authority in the Department of Education, to pursue its political enemies and to silence critics of the administration,” Stark said.
The complaint in question
The Title VI complaint against Middlebury College was filed by the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism.
The complaint alleges that Middlebury College’s administration has fostered an antisemitic climate on campus through “inaction, refusal to enforce its own policies, dismissiveness toward Jewish students’ concerns, and lack of equal treatment of its Jewish students as compared with other minority groups on campus.”
The complaint includes a list of alleged evidence against the Middlebury College administration, such as administrators denying recognition to a second Jewish identity-based club on campus called Chabad and allegedly issuing “retaliatory disciplinary action” against a Jewish student who reported a resident adviser for posting the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.”
According to the complaint, administrators also asked student organizers to “universalize” a vigil after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack to recognize both Israeli and Palestinian deaths and to not display Israeli flags or Jewish symbols at the event. The complaint also states that school officials limited campus police presence at the vigil despite Jewish students expressing safety concerns.
Rachel Feldman, a community organizer with the Vermont-based organization Shalom Alliance, said the alleged events in the complaint are reflective of a broader national trend.
“For two years, Jewish students, Jewish parents and Jews across the country have been screaming that our campuses are not safe and are becoming increasingly hostile, discriminatory and even violent towards our Jewish students, and these very real pleas seem to be falling on deaf ears,” Feldman said.
In an emailed statement, Carly Gammill, executive director of StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, expressed gratitude to the Trump administration for prioritizing addressing antisemitism on college campuses.
“We look forward to the results of OCR’s investigation, including meaningful changes for the Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students at Middlebury College who have been directly impacted by the hostile climate on their campus,” Gammill said.
But, Jonah Rubin, the senior manager of campus organizing for the national organization Jewish Voice for Peace, said via email that the Trump administration and the group StandWithUs “falsely conflate” antisemitism with criticism and protest of Israeli government and military actions against Palestinians.
“It is not antisemitic to criticize the Israeli military’s genocide of Gaza.” Rubin said. “These false accusations of antisemitism evacuate the term from its meaning precisely at the time when real antisemites are ascending to power in this country.”
Defining antisemitism
On its website, the U.S. Department of State cites the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. The StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice also uses the definition as a basis of its Title VI complaint against Middlebury College.
But, the American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech advocacy organizations have taken issue with that definition, sending letters last year to the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Biden administration and the American Bar Association, urging the definition be rejected.
This was due to concerns that the definition equates protected speech under the First Amendment, such as political criticism of the government of Israel or Zionism, with unprotected discrimination and would cause increasing censorship on college campuses, according to the letters.
“Regardless of the original intent of its drafters, in practice the IHRA definition has been used consistently (and nearly exclusively) not to fight antisemitism, but rather to defend Israel and harm Palestinians — at the cost of undermining and dangerously chilling fundamental rights of free speech, freedom of assembly and protest, and academic freedom,” the letter to the American Bar Association reads.
Feldman, with Shalom Alliance, said there are three areas where she considers criticism of Israel to be antisemitic: demonization of Israel, delegitimization of the nation of Israel and double standards directed toward Israel.
“It’s more about listening to the Jewish people when they are experiencing antisemitism, and stop trying to put it in a box, because antisemitism is a shape-shifting form of hatred,” Feldman said.
Stark said the actions of the Trump administration to investigate institutions of high learning and threaten funding cuts are particularly concerning because universities have traditionally fostered free speech and served as “breeding grounds of dissent and vociferous criticism of the federal government.”
“Without intending to diminish in any way the very real problem of antisemitism on college campuses and in American society writ large, this is not a good faith attempt to actually combat antisemitism,” Stark said. “The preoccupation with speech on university campuses, which I think we’ve seen through multiple executive orders and the White House’s public comments, are part of a broader assault on American intellectual life.”