US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Sept. 2, 2026. Photo: IMAGO/MediaPunch via Reuters Connect

The US departments of Justice and Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced a settlement with Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) to resolve an antisemitism civil rights complaint against the school, which emerged from accusations that campus officials enacted policies that prevented Jewish students from completing final exams.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, LMU’s absence policies combined to ensure that faculty rejected Jewish students’ requests for exemptions when test day fell on Jewish holidays. Two Orthodox Jewish students studying medicine are said to have been punished by the dictate, and, according to Rabbi Yossi Wilhelm of Chabad of Knoxville, their qualifications for becoming doctors were allegedly called into doubt by a college official who implied that religious observance disqualifies one from entering the field.

The LMU settlement shelves those rules.

“Through our joint action with the Department of Justice, Lincoln Memorial University is ending practices that penalized Jewish students and will establish clear protections for religious accommodations moving forward,” said Paul Stannard, director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights.

Stannard also stated her agency’s commitment to “eliminating antisemitism and religious discrimination — a commitment we underscored earlier this month by issuing guidance on discrimination rooted in antisemitism to entities that receive HHS funding.”

Commenting on the settlement to a local news outlet, LMU’s communications director Rachel Worley said it “does not tolerate antisemitism or discrimination against any student,” adding that “their success remains at the heart of our mission.”

Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish health-care professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, Jewish civil rights groups have said in a number of studies. In one December 2024 study, nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals who responded to a survey said they have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.

The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”

On Wednesday, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which has brought dozens of antisemitism complaints on behalf of Jewish victims of discrimination, cited the Jewish High Holiday season as the time for government to address to address the issue of religious accommodations.

“As we approach Yom Kippur, many Jewish Americans will be taking time off from work or school in order to observe the holiday,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a press release. “This new HHS settlement provides a way forward: Federal officials are now making clear, in this important new case, that institutions cannot deny requests from Jewish Americans if they are permitting leave to others for either religions or even non-religious reasons. And HHS is using basic civil rights law, specifically Title VI, to do so.”

HHS is unusually active in enforcing civil rights law these days, a circumstance owing to alterations which the Trump administration made to how the federal government responds to accusations of racism lodged against institutions which receive copious public money.

Just this month, HHS issued new guidance on civil rights and antisemitism in a “Dear Colleague” letter which warned medical institutions that the department will sanction institutions found to have allowed anti-Jewish discrimination.

The guidance covered several areas, including patient care, clinical training, and medical school administration, stressing that services and other opportunities must never be denied, delayed, or inconsistently provided based on anti-Jewish hatred. It amounted to one of the clearest messages from an American president that antisemitism is as severe and un-American as other forms of racism.

In July, the administration, responding to counsel from across the Jewish community, even settled a civil rights complaint with Reed College in Portland, Oregon through traditional channels, sending it to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education, an agency he has previously described as redundant and promised to close. As first reported by The Free Press, Trump is now credited with convincing the college to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which is widely regarded by Jews and non-Jews as an imperfect but effective reference guide for identifying antisemitism when and before it occurs.

Following the news, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the administration’s action, noting that OCR’s method for effecting lasting change is time-tested.

“This outcome demonstrates how the Title VI process can work to effectively protect Jewish students. We are deeply grateful for the Office for Civil Rights’ dedication and assistance in resolving this case,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.