The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday accused George Washington University of being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment of Jewish, American-Israeli and Israeli students and faculty.
The Justice Department, in an agency notice, cited a pro-Palestinian encampment on GWU’s University Yard for two weeks during the spring 2024 term. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department cleared the encampment on May 8, arresting nearly three dozen people in the process.
About a week earlier, MPD had refused the university’s request to clear the encampment, and Police Chief Pamela Smith said the department had no plans to remove the demonstrators as long as they were peaceful. When police eventually cleared out the encampment, MPD cited a “gradual escalation in the volatility of the protest.”
The Justice Department has now accused GWU of violating Title VI, which bars federally funded institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin.
GWU is the latest university under fire from the Trump administration for allegedly not doing enough to protect students and employees from antisemitism.
These accusations are often followed by threats that colleges will lose vast swaths of their federal funding unless they adopt sweeping policy changes. Some Jewish lawmakers have accused President Donald Trump of weaponizing antisemitism to attack colleges.
The Trump administration is looking to negotiate with GWU, as it has with other institutions in its crosshairs. The notice of violation states that the Justice Department is offering to enter a “voluntary resolution agreement” with the university.
In the notice, the Justice Department alleges GWU leaders were deliberately indifferent to several incidents.
It says one Jewish student described “being surrounded, harassed, threatened, and then ordered to leave the area immediately by antisemitic protesters.” In another instance, the notice says a Jewish student holding up an Israeli flag near the encampment was surrounded by protesters who had linked arms “for the purpose of restricting the Jewish student’s movements.”
In a public statement on Tuesday, GWU said it is reviewing the Justice Department’s notice.
“GW condemns antisemitism, which has absolutely no place on our campuses or in our civil society,” the university said in the statement. “Moreover, our actions clearly demonstrate our commitment to addressing antisemitic actions and promoting an inclusive campus environment by upholding a safe, respectful, and accountable environment.”
The Trump administration recently hit the University of California, Los Angeles with similar accusations.
In late July, the Justice Department alleged that UCLA had also violated civil rights law. Like with GWU, Trump administration officials pointed to a pro-Palestinian encampment erected in the spring 2024 term that university officials cleared after about a week.
The Trump administration quickly suspended $584 million in federal funding, a move that brought University of California system leaders to the negotiating table in hopes of restoring the money.
However, UC President James Milliken said in a statement on Aug. 6 that the funding cuts “do nothing to address antisemitism” and accused the Trump administration of ignoring both the system and UCLA’s efforts to combat antisemitism.
Just two days later, the Justice Department proposed a settlement with the university — a whopping $1 billion penalty.
Milliken issued a quick and blunt rebuke. “As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” he said in an Aug. 8 statement.
