Dozens of universities throughout the country received a warning from the federal government on Monday about their obligation to protect Jewish students on campus, as well as the administration of President Donald Trump, applies to pro-p-palestinus.
The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, wrote to 60 institutions, many of which were the site of long protests and sometimes frantic last year, telling them that they would face “potential application actions” if they could not defend title VI of the Civil Rights Law regarding Jewish students.
That part of the law makes it illegal to discriminate “based on race, color and national origin” in any activity that obtains federal funds.
Six of the eight IVY League institutions are on the list, including Columbia University and Harvard University.
The measure occurs when hundreds of protesters met Monday in New York City to demand the launch of the pro-palestinian activist and graduated from Columbia Mahmoud Khalil, while a court decides whether to deport the man born in Syria after his student visa was revoked. A detention hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
The students of at least 84 universities celebrated protests, established camps or university buildings occupied last year as the Israel-Ahamas war unleashed in the Gaza Strip, with some protests that last weeks. According to a NBC news count, more than 3,000 people arrested, including more than 220 in Columbia.
The protesters asked the Government to withdraw support to Israel’s incursion into Gaza’s aerial bombardment, which has killed more than 48,000 people there, according to the Hamas-Administered Ministry of Health.
Jewish organizations asked universities to make students protect students in the midst of posters and anti -Semitic slogans on the campus.
In a statement, McMahon said that the department is “deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on the US elite campus. UU. They continue to fearing for their safety in the midst of the relentless anti -Semitic eruptions that have severely interrupted the life of the campus for more than a year.”
“American schools and universities benefit from huge public investments funded by US taxpayers. This support is a privilege and depends on scrupulous adhesion to federal laws of anti -discrimination,” he continued.
The Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education wrote to universities after Trump signed an executive order to “combat anti -Semitism” on January 29, asking for a harder action in universities and the elimination of “aliens” that carry out anti -Semitic activities.
Monday’s intervention could be one of the final acts of the department, since the Trump administration prepares to dismantle it to redistribute authority to individual states, which the president promised to do so as soon as September 2023.
The Federal Government canceled last week $ 400 million in subsidies due to Columbia, the center of the protest movement last year, for its “continuous inaction against the persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
After Khalil’s arrest on Saturday, Palestine Legal, a non-profit organization based in Chicago that offers legal advice to pro-palestinian activists, asked universities not to collaborate with immigration and customs agents in attempts to arrest and deport activists.
“The kidnapping and detention of students about their political ideology represents a significant escalation in McCarthyite attacks against the student movement for Palestinian liberation,” said Palestine Legal Personnel lawyer, Sabiya Ahamed, in a statement.
