LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Days after a federal antisemitism task force announced plans to visit UCLA as part of a tour of 10 university campuses nationwide that have experienced antisemitic incidents, UCLA’s new chancellor Monday said the school would implement new training and education to combat anti- Jewish bias on campus.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice statement on Feb. 28, the Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism notified all 10 universities of the upcoming visits — including UCLA and USC — saying the group “was aware of allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law.”
No timeframe was given for the visits. Nor were any specifics provided about the purported antisemitic incidents.
Both UCLA and USC experienced extensive pro-Palestinian protests last year in conjunction with the Israel-Hamas war sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. A massive pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA was one of the largest campus protests of its type in the country.
The federal task force was created pursuant to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order on additional measures to combat antisemitism.
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said Monday in a message to the Bruin community that the university has begun an initiative to fight antisemitism. As part of the program, professor Stuart Gabriel of the UCLA Anderson School of Management will lead an “action group” that will bring together members of the UCLA community and civic leaders from diverse backgrounds, faiths and perspectives, Frenk said.
“This will be a standing initiative — reporting directly to me — and will have the support it requires to achieve our goals,” the chancellor wrote.
Through the initiative, Frenk said, UCLA will implement recommendations of the earlier Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti- Israeli Bias, which was chaired by Gabriel. Those recommendations include: enhancing relevant training and education, improving the complaint system, assuring enforcement of current and new laws and policies, and cooperating with stakeholders, Frenk said.
“I want to thank the members of the task force for their valuable work,” he wrote. “And I want to thank Professor Gabriel for agreeing to take the next step, translating recommendations into action. In the coming months, we will launch other initiatives across UCLA to move us from polarization to pluralism.”
He continued, “UCLA is at an inflection point. Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself. This is an opportunity for UCLA to rise to the challenge of being an exemplary university.”
USC, meanwhile, issued a statement Feb. 28 saying it has “publicly and unequivocally denounced antisemitism in all its forms, and has taken strong actions to protect all of our students — including members of our Jewish community — from illegal discrimination of any kind. USC is proud to enroll one of the largest Jewish student bodies in the country, and we look forward to speaking with the Department of Justice about everything we have done to create a welcoming and non-discriminatory campus environment for all members of our community.”
Other universities the federal task force plans to visit are Columbia University; George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; UC Berkeley; and the University of Minnesota.
The Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Education and the U.S. General Services Administration on Friday announced the immediate cancellation of approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University due to what the Department of Education called “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
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