The Trump administration’s multi-agency plan to “root out” antisemitism across U.S. college campuses received praise from students and professors as fear persists among the Jewish community.
“You see in schools like UC Berkeley, Portland or Harvard, Jewish students are being locked out of libraries, and they’re being harassed by other students,” high school junior Gregory Lyakhov said on “Fox & Friends First” Wednesday. “That’s not how I want my college experience to go, and that’s definitely not how it should be.”
Lyakhov, a Trump supporter, blamed the Biden administration for taking “no action” to address antisemitism and Hamas sympathizers terrorizing campuses during the former president’s term.
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Noah Rubin, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, described witnessing “true violence” similar to what Lyakhov described.
“Jewish students are being intimidated. They’re being physically harassed. There are people breaking the laws, and… we’re not holding them accountable in the ways that we should be,” he told “America’s Newsroom.”
“So I think that this executive order says we’re not going to tolerate this anymore, and it’s a very great first step.”
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order on “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” last week. The directive gives all federal agencies a 60-day window to identify civil and criminal authorities available to combat antisemitism and deport anti-Jewish activists who broke any laws.
On Monday, the Justice Department issued a press release pursuant to the order, announcing the formation of a multi-agency taskforce to combat antisemitism.
Ran Kivetz, a professor at Columbia Business School, called the probe “absolutely necessary” while weighing in on the announcement on Wednesday.
“It’s a great step. Things have gotten better above ground, so the type of riots that we saw that went on consistently at Columbia University, those types of riots and violence and [the] takeover of buildings has come down below ground…
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“…This task force, which is multiagency – it’s the Department of Justice, it’s the Department of Education, other agencies – that’s a great start, a great move,” he said.
Trump’s Education Department will probe five universities for alleged antisemitism – Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, UC Berkeley and the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities.
“Too many universities have tolerated widespread antisemitic harassment and the illegal encampments that paralyzed campus life last year, driving Jewish life and religious expression underground. The Biden Administration’s toothless resolution agreements did shamefully little to hold those institutions accountable,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said in a statement.
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