A Justice Department official spearheading President Trump\u2019s battle against Harvard University \u2014 which has led to multiple lawsuits and the school losing billions in federal funding \u2014 says the administration intends to take the University of California to court over alleged antisemitism.<\/p>\n
Leo Terrell, senior counsel for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, is heading a multiagency task force on combating antisemitism and said in a Tuesday Fox News interview that there will be \u201cmassive lawsuits against [the] UC system\u201d and other colleges \u201con the East Coast, on the West Coast, in the Midwest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExpect hate crime charges filed by the federal government. Expect Title VII lawsuits,\u201d Terrell added, referring to U.S. civil rights law that protects against employment discrimination based on \u201crace, color, religion, sex or national origin.\u201d The task force has singled out UCLA, USC and UC Berkeley in addition to Harvard and six other U.S. campuses for investigations.<\/p>\n
Speaking separately in an interview with Jewish News Syndicate, Terrell said the campuses \u2014 which also include Columbia, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, New York and Northwestern universities and the University of Minnesota \u2014 have rebuffed task force investigators. The task force, announced in March, has not made its intended visits to campuses, students and law enforcement because of \u201cresistance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, a UC spokesperson said the university \u201cabhors antisemitism and is diligently working to address, counter and eradicate it in all its forms across the system.\u201d \u201cWe have been, and plan to continue, cooperating with the administration. Antisemitism has no place at UC or anywhere else in society,\u201d said Rachel Zaentz, senior director of strategic and critical communications.<\/p>\n
A USC spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the task force has visited the campus. \u201cThe university continues to publicly and unequivocally denounce antisemitism in all its forms and has taken strong actions to protect all of our students \u2014 including members of our Jewish community \u2014 from illegal discrimination of any kind,\u201d the university said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Terrell\u2019s group also said in February that it would meet with mayors of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Boston. A spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass\u2019 office did not respond to a question about whether the L.A. meeting has taken place. Terrell said on Fox News that he was \u201cecstatic\u201d about a recent meeting with New York Mayor Eric Adams, whom Terrell called a \u201cnew partner.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March, the Education Department sent letters to sixty campuses warning them to \u201cprotect Jewish students\u201d or \u201cface potential enforcement.\u201d They included four UC campuses \u2014 San Diego, Santa Barbara, Berkeley and Davis \u2014 as well as USC, Pomona College, Stanford, Chapman University, Santa Monica College and Sacramento State.<\/p>\n
That same month, the Justice Department said it had launched a civil rights investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the University of California, saying its attorneys believe there is a \u201cpotential pattern\u201d of discrimination against Jewish employees at the state\u2019s flagship higher education system.<\/p>\n
The situation between the Trump administration and universities across the United States, particularly those accused of antisemitism, continues to escalate. With lawsuits pending and investigations underway, the academic and legal communities are watching closely to see how these cases will unfold and what implications they may have for academic freedom and discrimination policies on campuses.<\/p>\n
Introduction to the Allegations A Justice Department official spearheading President Trump\u2019s battle against Harvard University \u2014 which has led to multiple lawsuits and the school losing billions in federal funding \u2014 says the administration intends to take the University of California to court over alleged antisemitism. Background on the Task Force Leo Terrell, senior counsel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/6f147f5\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/7672x4028+0+529\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F16%2F53%2F3280a3a5408395f5be792016a617%2Fhttps-delivery-gettyimages.com%2Fdownloads%2F2200911276","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15516,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions\/15516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}