Addressing the Antisemitism Education Gap (opinion)

At a recent U.S. Commission on Civil Rights briefing, the symptoms of antisemitism that have plagued college campuses were on full display. It was the commission’s first briefing on antisemitism in nearly two decades—and the testimony during the briefing and public comment period made clear that this issue can no longer be treated as episodic or isolated.

One student from the University of California, Santa Barbara, described men shouting antisemitic slurs outside his Jewish fraternity house, prompting him to remove identifying signs from the building out of fear. In subsequent weeks, eggs were thrown at the fraternity house, and one member reported that his Star of David pendant was ripped from his neck.

Another student from Harvard University testified that within days of arriving on campus, she placed a mezuzah on her dormitory doorpost—only to find it torn off.

A student from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, described how masked protesters disrupted a post–Oct. 7 event organized by the Jewish community and chanted slogans understood as calls for violence against Jews—reportedly with the involvement of a faculty member.

If these are the incidents that surface in formal testimony and reports, it is not hard to imagine what antisemitic slights and microaggressions go unreported on campuses every day.

These incidents, and others like them, deserve full congressional scrutiny. A recent report from the House Education and Workforce Committee highlighted the urgency of addressing antisemitism on college campuses. Some universities have begun to take it more seriously—a welcome shift.

But new data from the Anti-Defamation League suggests a more complicated picture. Focusing only on high-profile incidents risks missing the deeper forces shaping campus climate—namely, increasingly hostile attitudes toward Jews and a growing endorsement of antisemitic tropes.

In the wake of the campus encampments after Oct. 7, 2023, universities are getting better at responding. But their interventions still do too little to address the attitudes that allow such incidents to take root.

A survey of more than 1,000 non-Jewish college students reveals why this gap matters. Nearly half (48.3 percent) reported witnessing or experiencing anti-Jewish behavior in campus spaces (including digital spaces) in the past year. Roughly 48 percent endorsed at least one anti-Jewish attitude, and about one in five (19.2 percent) endorsed three or more anti-Jewish attitudes.

Of the six attitudes tested, the most commonly held belief was that “Jews weaponize anti-Jewish prejudice to silence criticism of Israel,” endorsed by more than a third of the non-Jewish student respondents (34.1 percent), followed by “Jews are more loyal to Israel than America” (endorsed by 27.6 percent of respondents), “Jews have too much power in the United States today” (20.1 percent), “Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want” (15.5 percent), “Jews only care about themselves” (13 percent) and, finally, “It is OK to blame Jewish Americans for what Israel does” (5.2 percent).

As we note in the survey report, the findings, taken together, suggest that these “problematic beliefs are sufficiently widespread to influence campus discourse.”

At the same time, only 5.3 percent of respondents reported having received antisemitism-specific training. That gap should concern every university president.

When only one in 20 students has been taught how to respond to an antisemitic incident, campuses are not building the skills that prevention requires. In most other areas of campus risk—from sexual misconduct to alcohol abuse—universities don’t assume students will simply figure it out; they build shared expectations and skills through baseline education. Antisemitism remains an outlier.

The issue is not indifference. Many campus leaders have strengthened reporting systems and disciplinary processes. At the same time, findings from the House Education and Workforce Committee’s recent report point to persistent challenges, including concerns about faculty- and student group–driven antisemitism.

Prevention requires a whole-of-community strategy that inoculates students against antisemitism and equips them to act as upstanders. Without that foundation, the incidents relayed at the Civil Rights Commission briefing and in the committee report likely represent the tip of the iceberg, and today’s tensions are allowed to harden into tomorrow’s chronic problems.

Yet, the 2026 ADL Campus Antisemitism Report Card offers cautious grounds for optimism. Many institutions are beginning to speak more clearly, enforce policies more consistently and take campus concerns more seriously.

Consider Temple University, which moved from a C to an A after updating its Student Conduct Code and discrimination policies to explicitly prohibit antisemitism and anti-Israeli discrimination and to classify masked harassment as misconduct. The administration publicly acknowledged the need for these changes and communicated them to the campus community. That kind of progress deserves recognition—and it shows what is possible when universities act with clarity and urgency.

But not all institutions have followed this example. Universities exist, at their core, to educate. If the attitudes documented in this new data go unaddressed, campuses will remain stuck in a reactive cycle.

That means moving education on antisemitism from the margins to the center of campus life. Training should be mandatory, recurring and embedded across campus programming—equipping students to recognize antisemitism and respond appropriately.

It also requires visible leadership. Students take cues from what institutions emphasize consistently, not just what they condemn in crises. Investing in long-term, proactive education signals that preventing antisemitism is part of the university’s core mission, not merely a compliance exercise.

Universities have made meaningful strides in confronting antisemitism. The question now is whether they will apply their greatest institutional strength—education—early enough to prevent the next antisemitic incident.