The DOJ sued UCLA after the university refused to pay a $1 billion antisemitism fine. Rep. Randy Fine compared Muslims to dogs. And the administration continues to gut the very civil rights office responsible for protecting students.
But we’re not just watching. This week, Kevin Rachlin testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, making the case for restoring the agencies — effectively gutted by the Trump administration — that actually protect Jewish students. And Nexus Fellow Emily Tamkin laid out a new framework for fighting antisemitism in the Forward.
Real protection comes from functioning civil rights agencies, principled leadership, and clear boundaries around hate. Not political theater. Nexus is working to defend those foundations.
Nexus Fellow Emily Tamkin argues in the Forward that the question is not whether to fight antisemitism but how. Responding to Bret Stephens’s recent claim that the fight has failed, Tamkin proposes three shifts: invest in media literacy, rethink Holocaust education to teach how hatred builds in a society rather than as an isolated moral lesson, and fight antisemitism alongside other forms of hatred rather than in a silo.
Antisemitism thrives alongside racism, Islamophobia, and conspiracy thinking. Communities that learn to recognize one form of hate are better equipped to recognize all of them. That’s Nexus’s approach, and Tamkin makes the case with precision.
Nexus Vice President Kevin Rachlin testified at the first independent government investigation into campus antisemitism. He told the commission that by gutting the Office for Civil Rights, the administration has hobbled the very agency responsible for protecting students under Title VI. Jewish students who testified said the same: the administration’s tactics haven’t made them safer, and they don’t want their pain used as a political pretext for undermining civil liberties.
The Justice Department sued UCLA on Tuesday, accusing the university of antisemitism against Jewish and Israeli employees. This follows months of failed negotiations after the DOJ demanded more than $1 billion, a number Trump personally insisted on, plus policy changes that would bring UCLA into closer ideological alignment with the White House.
This is using fears of antisemitism as a cudgel against higher education. The fines would mean massive cuts to research funding, student security, and resources that would harm everyone, including Jewish students. Same playbook as Northwestern, Columbia, Harvard, and Penn.
Rep. Randy Fine, one of four Jewish Republicans in the House, posted on X: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” The post got 17 million views. The Congressional Jewish Caucus condemned it. More than 50 organizations called for Fine to be censured.
Reprehensible. You cannot fight antisemitism while dehumanizing Muslims. This is exactly what Tamkin means when she argues we have to fight hatred across communities, not one form at a time.
In a recent Ohio Senate Judiciary hearing, the Executive Director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations’ Ohio chapter accused Israelis of collecting the skin of dead Palestinians. These vicious accusations, offered with no evidence beyond Israel having the largest skin bank in the world, is unacceptable. It evokes an ancient trope that has been used to stir up hatred against Jews generation after generation. CAIR should condemn these comments immediately.
JTA reported on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hearing, citing Rachlin’s testimony on the administration’s gutting of the Office for Civil Rights.
Haaretz covered the growing Jewish organizational backlash to Rep. Fine, citing Nexus and our call for American Jewish leaders to speak out.
This is what we do: track real antisemitism, call out when it’s weaponized, and make clear the difference. If you’d like to support this work, you can donate here. We’d love to connect.
Antisemitism is not a feeling, and fighting it is not a vibe. It is concrete work. It looks like enforcing a content policy you wrote.
Six months ago, the FBI cut ties with the ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center. This week, the Justice Department indicted the SPLC.
