Harvard University campus on May 24, 2025, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photo: Zhu Ziyu/VCG via Reuters Connect

StopAntisemitism, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, has assigned mediocre and failing grades to over a dozen elite American colleges in a new annual report, citing the institutions’ failing to mount a meaningful response to the campus antisemitism crisis.

Of all the Ivy League universities assessed by StopAntisemitism, only three — Cornell University (C), Dartmouth College (B), and Princeton University (D) — merited higher than an “F.” StopAntisemitism, which is led by executive director Liora Rez, said other schools in the conference, such as Harvard University and Yale University, continue to offer Jewish students a hostile environment, citing as evidence feedback it has received from Jewish students who attend them.

“At Harvard, Jewish students report high levels of self-censorship and antisemitism, with federal authors finding the university showed ‘deliberate indifference.’ Despite new initiatives, the campus climate remains tense and accountability uncertain,” the report says. “At Yale, Jewish students faced harassment, exclusion, and blocked access, prompting a federal investigation. Despite policy changes, the campus remains hostile and unsafe for Jewish students.”

Other elite schools such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wesleyan University didn’t perform well either. Ds and Fs were given to the lot. Meanwhile, in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, a destination for students aspiring to future roles in government, American University and Georgetown University earned Ds.

“Even since the recent Gaza ceasefire agreement, antisemitism remains loud, bold, and unchecked, revealing that none of this is about Israel but instead is about Jew-hared, plain and simple,” the report says. “Coordinated protests, ideological harassment, and institutional apathy continue to endanger Jewish students. Families must confront the facts: Are you prepared to send tuition dollars to a school that allows your children to be threatened, targeted, and blamed simply for being Jewish?”

StopAntisemitism’s report tracks with opinions recently registered by Jewish students. Earlier this month, a significant portion of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed by the school’s Hillel chapter said antisemitism on their campus is severe enough to warrant hiding one’s Jewish identity. Additionally, 40 percent said it is difficult to be Jewish at Penn and 45 percent said they “feel uncomfortable or intimidated because of their Jewish identity or relationship with Israel.”

Meanwhile, the results showed a staggering 85 percent of survey participants reported hearing about, witnessing, or experiencing “something antisemitic.” Another 31 percent of Jewish Penn students said they feel the need to hide their Jewishness to avoid discrimination, which is sometimes present in the classroom, as 26 percent of respondents said they have “experienced antisemitic or anti-Israel comments from professors.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, American college campuses have seen numerous antisemitic incidents this academic year even as the federal government ramps up its efforts to combat antisemitism and higher education institutions bolster their anti-discrimination policies following an outcry from the Jewish community that its civil rights were not being recognized and protected.

In September, for example, two students forcefully gained entry into a Jewish fraternity’s off-campus house at Syracuse University on during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and heaved a bag of pork at a wall, causing its contents to splatter across the floor. In November, a Georgetown University-affiliated student newspaper issued an editorial which accused Israel of “genocide” and described the world’s lone Jewish state as an illegitimate entity that should be isolated. Days earlier, a local imam and graduate student at the City College of New York called for the imposition of sharia law on Americans and denigrated a Jewish professor during what began as an interfaith event but ended as another portent of rising anti-Jewish extremism in the US.

Jewish students told StopAntisemitism that the stories aren’t just headlines but representative of harrowing, lived experiences.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents to a survey the group conducted reported having “been a victim of antisemitism on campus” while 88 percent who brought the matter to campus officials said they were dissatisfied with the handling of the investigation. Sixty-five percent said they felt “unwelcome as a Jew in certain spaces” at some point and 61 percent said diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives do little in the way of reducing hatred.

“The 2025 findings prove that antisemitism on campus is systemic, not episodic. It is embedded in the culture, policies, and power structures of higher education,” the report concludes. “Jewish students who report harassment are routinely dismissed, ignored, or retraumatized. Administrators hide behind ‘process,’ either because they too are afraid or, worse, because they are complicit. Faculty validate and amplify extremist rhetoric, some even teaching it in class. And DEI offices, the very departments tasked with protecting minority students, often serve as engines of anti-Jewish hostility.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.