When Muhlenberg College learned in January 2024 - as pro-Palestinian protests were sweeping campuses across the United States - that it was under investigation for discriminating against Jewish students, the small liberal arts institution in Pennsylvania took action.

The college fired a tenured professor who had been accused of targeting Jewish students, and the US Education Department, satisfied with Muhlenberg’s response to complaints of antisemitism on campus, ended its investigation.

So Muhlenberg's inclusion on a list of 60 universities and colleges under investigation by the Education Department for antisemitism was "not anticipated," Todd Lineburger, a spokesperson for Muhlenberg, said.

"To our knowledge, Muhlenberg is not on the DOE list of institutions with open investigations," Lineburger said. "We have received no further information from the Department of Education and continue our robust efforts to remain fully compliant with all laws and regulations."

The March 10 letter to 60 institutions, signed by the Education Department’s acting civil rights chief Craig Trainor, focused on antisemitic activity following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. It warned that Donald Trump's administration would not tolerate antisemitic acts - and institutions that did risked losing federal government funding.

Nearly a third – 19 in total – of the academic institutions under investigation for antisemitism by the Trump administration had already resolved earlier complaints or had never been subject to such complaints at all, according to 31 colleges' responses to Reuters queries and an analysis of publicly available records maintained by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

The seemingly haphazard composition of the list – and the potentially enormous financial implications – raised immediate concerns in the academic community.

"I certainly was hearing confusion from campus leaders whose institutions were named," said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the advocacy group American Association of Colleges and Universities. "That's part of the distress that they're experiencing, because they don't even know the nature and extent of the allegations against them."

A spokesperson from the Education Department did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

In her announcement that warnings had been issued to the colleges, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said Jewish students at "elite US campuses" were in fear of their safety. She went on: “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”

The Reuters analysis found at least 15 of the 60 universities on the education department’s list - including Muhlenberg - had already resolved antisemitism complaints. Four universities - including American University in Washington - had no record of a recent discrimination complaint at all. 

Another five universities were under investigation for discrimination against Muslim, Arab and pro-Palestinian students and faculty as well as Jewish groups. 

Three more institutions were the subject of complaints about discrimination against pro-Palestinian students, but not antisemitism, which was the sole focus of the March 10 letter. 

Ivy League and state institutions

The Trump administration’s list also departed from the “Campus Antisemitism Report Card” of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to fight antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. 

Seven of the universities on the Education Department’s list – including Muhlenberg – received B grades or “better than most” from the ADL.

Meanwhile, the list left out seven universities receiving F grades from the ADL, including Haverford College, Scripps College, and Loyola University. Five other institutions that received an "F" grade – including University of California, Santa Barbara; Pomona College and Portland State University – were included on the list.

Other universities that had drawn severe criticism from Jewish groups for their handling of pro-Palestinian protests, such as University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) were excluded. The Department database includes three complaints against UCLA.

The letters marked an expansion of the administration’s war against the institutions Trump has disparaged as “infested with radicalism.” Trainor, the Education Department official who signed them, was a former attorney for the Trump policy-promoting America First Institute.

The notices spanned a cross-section of higher education institutions: Ivy League institutions like Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton as well as state universities in California, Florida, Ohio, and New York. They were issued three days after the Trump administration canceled grants and contracts worth about $400 million to Columbia University, the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian campus protests.

It was also unclear how the Trump administration would conduct its investigation with current staffing constraints, three former attorneys with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights told Reuters.

The day after it sent the letter to 60 universities, the Trump administration closed seven of the 12 regional offices of the OCR that investigate antisemitism and other discrimination complaints.

Two attorneys who lost their jobs as a result of those cuts, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that they were not involved in creating the list and did not know how it was created.

“We’re really watching an attack on higher education under the guise of fighting antisemitism, but I cannot emphasize enough how much it will not actually protect Jewish students,” said Erin Beiner, director of the student wing of J Street, a liberal Jewish-American lobbying group.

Wide-ranging complaints

The discrimination complaints against the institutions cover a wide range of events, according to the Education Department database.

Drexel University in Philadelphia was censured for not pursuing tougher disciplinary measures when a vocally pro-Israeli Jewish student’s dorm room was set on fire three days after the Hamas attacks. No one was hurt in the attack, and the Education Department closed the investigation after Drexel bolstered dorm security, arranged implicit bias training sessions for dorm staff, and issued university-wide reminders of safety and support resources.

At Florida’s University of Tampa, the father of a student suspended for scuffling with another student over a balloon said the school was “guilty of anti-Semitism” for not believing his son’s claim that the other student had used an antisemitic slur.

The only complaint against Pomona College in California was filed by Palestine Legal, an advocacy group that said the administration had allowed police to violently quash pro-Palestinian protests, and by requiring those protestors to remove their masks, exposed protesters to the risk that their identities and personal information could be publicly released.

Neither Drexel, the University of Tampa, nor Pomona responded to inquiries from Reuters about the complaints.

Billions of dollars of federal grants and contracts are at stake if the Education Department determines that the universities have allowed discrimination.

The Trump administration could withhold funds to pressure universities to change their disciplinary policies, admissions practices, and even the way certain academic departments are managed. It has levied all of these demands against Columbia, which meted out new punishments against students who were involved in last year’s protests, and later acquiesced to several demands.

Several schools told Reuters they would do whatever it takes to retain federal government funding.

“Both our president and our board have said we're not going to take any risks for loss of research funding. We're just not,” said Paul Allvin, vice president and global brand manager for George Mason University in Virginia.

The Education Department notified George Mason of an antisemitism complaint in December 2023. The university sent a lengthy account of its response to the complaint, and the department requested no further information.

A spokesperson for American University said the school would “comply with any communications or requests from OCR.” The Education Department’s databases have no record of a recent antisemitism complaint against or investigation into American University.

Some interventions on behalf of the targeted schools appeared to get immediate results.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green said he called the White House the morning after the state university received its letter to explain that conflict on its campus during Israel’s war in Gaza “paled in comparison” to other universities. “They assured me the University of Hawai'i is not on the chopping block for antisemitism,” the governor said in a statement to Reuters.

Other schools struck a more defiant tone when asked how the school would react if the Trump administration withheld funding.

“There is no lawful basis to withdraw federal funding,” said a spokesperson for Santa Monica College, pointing out that the letter “did not identify any violations by SMC or ask for a response.”