The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has opened an investigation into multiple universities, including UMass Amherst, surrounding alleged Title VI violations related to antisemitic discrimination.
American University, Yale University and Scripps College are under investigation along with UMass Amherst; complaints about these universities’ conduct were first filed by the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The complaints allege that the universities allowed various incidents of harassment or discrimination against Jewish students to go unpunished.
UMass Amherst is specifically under investigation due to allegations of an April 2024 complaint from the ADL reportedly being ignored by the university. The ADL accused the university of doing very little to advance an investigation into the November 2023 attack of a Jewish student on campus, claiming months went by without a hearing or proper resolution.
“In addition to allowing antisemitic violence to go unchecked, UMass-Amherst has permitted genocidal chants and rhetoric to permeate campus and allowed certain student groups to halt academic and social activity through their protests,” the complaint said. “UMass-Amherst has engaged in deliberate indifference towards the antisemitism currently festering on its campus.”
UMass Amherst refuted these claims shortly after, writing in a statement that “the alleged assailant was immediately arrested by the University of Massachusetts Police Department and barred from campus and is no longer enrolled at UMass Amherst. The university has no control over the court’s adjudication of this case.”
In the wake of pro-Palestinian protests, the Trump administration wrote that “antisemitic harassment and discrimination” are on the rise within universities. The DoE issued a letter March 10 to 60 universities, including UMass Amherst, instructing them to take action against this treatment or face “potential enforcement actions,” including the loss of federal funding. The OCR also launched investigations March 14 into 45 universities it accuses of “engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs;” both MIT and the New England College of Optometry were listed.
“The investigations come amid allegations that these institutions have violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by partnering with ‘The Ph.D. Project,’ an organization that purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a Ph.D. and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants,” the Department wrote in a statement. “OCR is also investigating six universities for allegedly awarding impermissible race-based scholarships and one university for allegedly administering a program that segregates students on the basis of race.”
Although a complaint may lead to an investigation, that does not mean the OCR has made a decision regarding the merits of the complaint. “During the investigation, OCR is a neutral fact-finder,” the office’s procedure policy states. “OCR will collect and analyze relevant evidence from the complainant, the recipient, and other sources, as appropriate.”
In a recent statement in response to the March 10 letter, UMass Amherst wrote that the institution “does not tolerate discrimination based on national origin” and “condemns hatred, including antisemitism, in all forms.” The university will “continue to cooperate fully with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.”
