Antisemitism on America’s College and University Campuses: Current Conditions and the Federal Response
Oral Testimony of Kevin Rachlin
Commissioners Garza, Nourse, and members of the Commission — thank you. I am Kevin Rachlin, Vice President of Government Relations at the Nexus Project, a nonpartisan organization that combats antisemitism, upholds democratic values, and protects free speech. I want to be direct. Antisemitism on America’s campuses is real, it is serious, and it demands an effective response. At the same time, the fight against antisemitism is inseparable from the fight against all forms of hatred — and both are inseparable from the health of American democracy. When we get the response right, we strengthen the institutions that protect every American. When we get it wrong — when we weaponize Jewish pain while failing to invest in what actually works — we make the problem worse for Jews and for everyone.
As you’ve heard all day, the data is alarming — 1,938 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2024, the highest ever recorded, and 42 percent of Jewish college students reporting antisemitism on campus. My written testimony details the full picture. But I want to underscore what is too often missing from this conversation: this crisis is not happening in isolation. The same forces driving antisemitism drive hatred against all communities. Any serious federal response must confront that reality.
This brings me to the most important point I can make to this Commission. The lesson of Jewish history, across centuries and continents, is that Jews thrive in societies with strong democratic institutions and robust civil rights protections. They are endangered in societies where those institutions are under attack — even when Jewish safety is offered as the justification. AJC’s data also confirms this: 77 percent of American Jews have less trust in democracy than five years ago. That correlation is not coincidental; it is a repeating historical pattern. The same civil rights infrastructure that protects Jewish students under Title VI protects Black students, Muslim students, and every other community. Weaken any of it, and you weaken the guardrails that have made this country the safest home Jews have ever known.
Many universities failed their Jewish students after October 7 — slow to respond to harassment, inconsistent in applying codes of conduct, and sometimes indifferent to Jewish students’ legitimate fears. The impulse to hold them accountable not only is justified; it is what the law itself requires. But how the government responds matters as much as the problem it claims to address. When enforcement is built on a blueprint drafted without the participation of any major Jewish organization, that blatantly ignores deadly antisemitism that comes from the far right entirely, and that calls for foreign students and protesters — many have done little more than engage in protests of Israeli policy to be deported, defunded, and expelled — we should ask whether the goal is protecting Jewish students or advancing a political agenda. This should concern this Commission and all those empowered to protect ours and all minority communities. When federal courts — including the First Circuit, the Western District of Texas, and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania — are finding that codifying the IHRA definition as an enforcement tool constitutes viewpoint discrimination and a violation of the First Amendment, this Commission should take that seriously.
The Nexus Project has spent years developing evidence-based answers.
The Nexus Campus Guide to Identifying Antisemitism, developed with leading scholars at universities where campus protests have taken place, provides a framework for recognizing antisemitism while safeguarding free speech. Its core insight is that both under-identification and over-identification cause serious harm. When antisemitism goes unaddressed, Jewish students suffer. When the label is applied too broadly, it discredits the effort, chills protected speech, and alienates the allies Jewish students need most. The Campus Guide gives administrators the tools to make those distinctions — and urges institutions to prioritize education and protection over punishment. You cannot punish your way to a more civilized society.
And institutions are already moving in this direction. University task forces on antisemitism — convened to grapple with this problem — have recommended practical actions: investing in education, building inclusive campus cultures, and have created resource lists that include multiple definitions as education resources. The National Education Association resource page for educators on teaching about antisemitism includes the Nexus Campus Guide among other critical training materials to help guide educators.
Last year, the Nexus Project published the Shofar Report, developed with Ms. Spitalnick, leading expert on white nationalism Eric Ward, extremism and polarization expert Rabbi Seth M. Limmer, and scholars from UCLA and New York University. It provides a comprehensive policy framework grounded in the same principle: Jewish safety and democratic health are mutually reinforcing. Effective strategies must address antisemitism from all sources while strengthening — not dismantling — the institutions that protect everyone.
This Commission has also heard concerning testimony today about the state of our civil rights enforcement infrastructure. Witness Beth Gellman-Beer — an eighteen-year veteran of OCR, promoted to Chief Attorney by fellow witness Ken Marcus, then DOGEd by fellow witness Craig Trainor — saw her Philadelphia office closed. That office was directly responsible for antisemitism investigations at Temple, Penn, Haverford, and Swarthmore. Those cases have effectively been transferred to an overloaded Atlanta office that cannot give them the attention everyone here claims to agree they deserve. You cannot credibly claim to fight antisemitism while dismantling the office that enforces civil rights.
My written testimony details seven recommendations. Let me highlight the essentials here.
First, preserve, reopen closed offices, and fully fund the Office for Civil Rights.
Second — replace punitive, enforcement only approaches with the kind of prevention, education and other practical action outlined in the ground breaking 2023 U.S. National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. This approach undergirds critical legislation pending in Congress now, the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act. Some are still trying to advance policy that would institutionalize or codify a single definition. Objections to that approach span both sides of the aisle and across the Jewish and civil rights communities, because there is now a widespread understanding that political pressure campaigns to codify a single definition create ruptures in the Jewish and civil rights community and detract from more practical action. After years of this fight, it’s time to put our energy behind real action that can, like the Biden national strategy, recognize the reality that the best prevention and education can draw on multiple resources, including multiple definitions of antisemitism — including IHRA— as strictly non-legally binding educational tools that should not be applied in punitive legal contexts, including in the immigration context.
ARPA would create a nonpolitical national coordinator to combat antisemitism, campus Title VI coordinators, enhance hate crime monitoring, ensure nonprofit security grants are free from political litmus tests.
Third, urge universities to adopt educational responses as a first line of defense — teaching recognition of antisemitism within frameworks that also address racism, Islamophobia, and all forms of bigotry.
Finally, ensure that any federal strategy addresses antisemitism from all sources, in genuine partnership with the Jewish community and in coalition with other targeted communities.
Only a society that is safe for all its people can be safe for its Jewish citizens. The Jewish community deserves more than performative outrage from those who weaponize our pain while dismantling the very institutions that protect us, or worse, do the bare minimum and claim it as a victory. We need a genuine response to address the rise in antisemitism in this country and invest in practical measures.
This Commission has an opportunity to show what that looks like. I urge you to seize it. Thank you.
