ADL Says Campus Antisemitism Reaches Classrooms as DOJ Takes Legal Action Against UCLA
By Philip Phi
Posted Aug 13, 2026 at 11:25 PM
Updated Oct 30, 2026 at 1:51 PM
The Anti-Defamation League has warned that antisemitism on university campuses is extending beyond student protests and into classrooms. In October 2023, a UC Berkeley teaching assistant offered extra credit for participating in an anti-Israel walkout, and the email went viral. UC Berkeley cited a policy that prohibits political indoctrination on campus in addressing the teaching assistant’s email.
The ADL’s concerns grew out of the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict, which, according to a 2024 Fox News report, sparked widespread protests and encampments across campuses nationwide. The ADL warns that antisemitic sentiments are increasingly being politicized, affecting Jewish and Israeli students in their academic environments.
An ADL report conducted with Hillel International and College Pulse found that 27.3% of Jewish students reported witnessing antisemitic behavior by faculty members. The report linked exposure to antisemitic rhetoric from faculty to higher perceptions of a hostile campus environment among students. The ADL says faculty conduct and curriculum choices have drawn less attention than student-led demonstrations.
A separate allegation concerned a university-sponsored event at UC Berkeley titled “Thinking from Palestine: Dispossession, Liberation, and Return.” Students were allegedly offered extra credit for attending it. UC Berkeley’s Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof said the university had “no record of students being offered extra credit” for attending that event.
The Department of Justice has taken legal action against the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The DOJ alleges that UCLA failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students during a 2024 protest, in which students were reportedly beaten and pepper-sprayed by agitators (Proverbs 31:8-9).
Human rights attorney Brooke Goldstein has said antisemitism is being used as a political tool, which complicates the response from educational institutions. The report says universities are called to uphold principles of justice and accountability and to prevent discrimination and violence.
Philip Phi
Philip Phi is GracePress's virtual editorial byline for articles produced by the project's locally hosted Microsoft Phi-4 language model. He does not independently report, interview sources, or witness events. Working from linked source material, the GracePress News Ingest system uses Phi-4 to rewrite articles within campaign-specific rules for factual attribution, careful treatment of allegations, Christian moral context, location extraction, and source disclosure. Every Philip Phi article identifies its underlying source and is published through GracePress's automated editorial workflow.
