Jewish students at Rutgers are accusing the Biden administration for cutting what they see as a sweetheart deal with the university that lets it off the hook for allowing a persistent culture of antisemitism.
The settlement, announced by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on January 2, requires Rutgers to take a series of actions to combat discrimination on campus after 400 reports of hateful incidents on campus were filed between July 2023 and June 2024, nearly three fourths of which alleged discrimination and harassment against Jews or Israelis.
In one such incident, a student penned an inflammatory post on social media encouraging violence against an Israeli attending the university with information on how to find them. In another report, a Jewish student’s dorm room was found to be vandalized with a Swastika drawn outside their dorm and their mezuzah defaced. Members of a Jewish fraternity alleged they were threatened because of their faith in another report.
As part of the settlement, Rutgers has agreed to issue a statement to students and employees saying that discrimination isn’t tolerated on campus, and to review past reports of discrimination to determine if further action needs to be taken in order to be Title IX compliant.
However, many students at Rutgers feel that the agreement falls far short of what is necessary to protect them from the relentless onslaught of antisemitism unleashed on the campus since Oct. 7.
Camilla Vaynberg, Vice President of Rutgers Students Supporting Israel, tells Fox News Digital that the measures agreed to by Rutgers aren’t likely to stem the tide of antisemitism on campus, and may not even end up being enforced after its current president Jonathan Holloway steps down.
“I personally think the university is being let off the hook, it’s a promise that we had before.” Vaynberg said.
“Will the agreements reached between [Holloway] and his faculty and the Department of Education remain the same regardless of who is taking his place?”
“A lot of what Rutgers agreed to involves ‘statements’ and ‘reviews’ but they have been stating and reviewing things right and left since October 7th and yet, the rate of antisemitic incidences at Rutgers continues to rise,” Ben Stern, 20, a sophomore at the school majoring in Political Science told Fox News Digital.
“The DOE sat on over 400 reports of discrimination for a year, and on the way out the door signed another toothless agreement that literally does nothing to protect anyone. It is official; this administration utterly failed the American Jewish community,” National Jewish Advocacy Center Director Mark Goldfeder said.
“I think this settlement falls miles short of what needs to happen in order to address the issues of antisemitism at Rutgers,” Stern lamented.
Some critics allege that the settlement was an attempt by the Biden administration to hamstring the incoming Trump administration from taking far more punitive action against the university.
“It’s disgraceful that in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration is letting universities, including Rutgers… off the hook.” House Education Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) said in a statement Thursday.
Trump vowed that his administration would strip colleges of accreditation and federal support if they do not stop teaching “antisemitic propaganda,” at the Combatting Antisemitism conference in Washington D.C. in September.
“The Biden administration has proven once again that it doesn’t give a dam about antisemitism in America. It’s not a coincidence that [they] released these long-awaited decisions just 2 weeks before leaving office,” said former Rutgers Hillel Director Andrew Getraer.
“It’s a weak deal,” Rutgers junior Joe Gindi told Fox News Digital.
“I am incredibly disappointed by the Biden administration for cutting this deal with Rutgers. This deal is far from the end of hate at our state university,” Gindi said.
Jewish students have been sounding the alarm about persistent antisemitism at the university in the year since Hamas launched their genocidal Oct. 7 attacks in which the terrorist group killed over 1,200 and kidnapped a hundreds more.
LGBTQ Orthodox Jewish student Rivka Schafer sued the school after their face was featured on an anti-Israel flyer plastered right outside their dorm.
“The message to Schafer and other Jewish students was clear: ‘Don’t support Israel, we know where you sleep,’” their complaint read.
New Jersey lawyer Rajeh A. Saadeh, a member of Rutgers University’s Center for Security, Race and Rights, routinely shared sickening videos of Hamas terrorists killing IDF soldiers on his Instagram, declaring it “hunting season” in the captions, the New York Post reported.
Rutgers, The Biden White House and the Department of Education did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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