Federal Whistleblowers Reveal a Fraudulent Campaign Against ‘Antisemitism’ on US Campuses
Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff To Universities: Stop Capitulating to Abuses of Civil Rights Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 20, 2026
Contact: Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff: concernedjfaculty@gmail.com
BOSTON — Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff (CJFS), a membership organization spanning nearly 50 campuses throughout New England, joins nationwide condemnation of spurious antisemitism allegations that the Trump administration promoted to advance its bigoted assault on American universities.
We once again urge higher ed leaders to reject the White House’s cynical misuse of Jewish identity to harm our institutions and communities, silence criticism of Israel, smear Arab and Muslim faculty, and extract repressive and exclusionary policies on our university campuses. We also call on Congress and state legislative bodies to investigate legal settlements by universities that were predicated on false allegations of antisemitism.
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On Tuesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) disclosed multiple whistleblower complaints that federal agencies have manipulated antisemitism investigations to target U.S. universities, punish protected speech, and force schools into settlements with the government despite lack of evidence that they violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
According to the whistleblowers, the White House disregarded findings by its own investigators that the universities were complying with federal civil rights law. The complaints reveal that this was part of an explicit plan by the Trump administration to use antisemitism as a pretext to illegally withhold funds and punish universities for scholarship, teaching, and political expression by their affiliates. Officials believed that universities would be forced to settle because they were “over a barrel.”
Professor Alexander Gourevitch of Brown University, a CJFS member who sharply criticized Brown’s settlement with the White House when it was announced last summer, stressed that the latest revelations are just the tip of the iceberg.
"Even if the investigations had not been pretextual, they were based on authoritarian and self-defeating ways of understanding antisemitism,” Gourevitch said. “They turned antisemitism into a matter of feelings, regardless of the intent of the speaker or the implications for free speech and academic freedom. If you felt like you were being singled out, then you were; if you felt you were being harassed, then you were. Such a broad and subjective understanding of antisemitism was not only bound to suppress all kinds of speech, it was ripe for abuse by ideologues in the administration and opportunists inside the academy. The best way to fight antisemitism is by defending everyone’s rights, not by turning politics into a struggle to get major institutions to favor your ethnic group."
One of the whistleblowers disclosed that the trigger for the pretextual investigations was a New York Post article that alleged anti-Semitic activities at medical school commencement ceremonies. This article was based, in turn, on a paper published in a small, donor-funded Israeli medical journal. As CJFS member Dr. Akiva Leibowitz wrote with a colleague at the time, the paper “appears to be ideologically motivated rather than a contribution to objective research.” It presents Palestinian cultural symbols such as the Palestinian flag, the keffiyeh, Al Aqsa Mosque, and the map of Palestine as antisemitic.
The government misconduct has implications beyond the DOJ’s own cases. The weaponization of Title VI has emboldened private litigants like the Brandeis Center and the Deborah Project to secure concessions based on claims of antisemitism similar to those debunked by the whistleblowers. Faced with simultaneous legal threats from the White House and private groups, universities like Harvard, Columbia, and UCLA and small liberal arts colleges like Haverford and Reed canceled classes and programs, disciplined students, faculty, and staff, and adopted the widely criticized International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of antisemitism. In some cases the groups that extracted these concessions are led by former Trump administration officials.
“The disclosures by Federal whistleblowers confirm our worst suspicions about the government’s authoritarian abuses of our higher education system over the past 18 months,” said Dr. Aaron Shakow, a member of the CJFS steering committee and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. “But they also call into question legal settlements and unwarranted interference in schools and universities by pro-Israel groups that have used the Federal pressure as leverage. Any investigations by Congress or state legislatures should address the possibility of collusion with the White House by private litigants or university governance bodies.”
Dr. Ben Allen, a member of the CJFS steering committee and Professor of Mathematics at Emmanuel College, called for meaningful action by colleges and universities in response to the whistleblower allegations. “Under threat from these fraudulent Title VI investigations, schools including my alma mater, Haverford College, have entered legal settlements that chill free speech, restrict political debate, and promote a one-sided view of Jewish identity. All such agreements should be reevaluated, and all ongoing negotiations suspended, now that these investigations are revealed to have no basis in law.”