Dept. of Education responds to campus anti-Semitism

WASHINGTON — A Jewish college student recently told Miguel Cardona that he believed anti-Semitism has become “normalized” on campuses. For the secretary of education, the comment stuck.

“That, to me, was repulsive,” Cardona said Jan. 10.

Following a conversation with Jewish and Muslim students at Dartmouth College, Cardona said his department was taking steps to deal with the problem.

He also praised the efforts of Dartmouth, which has hosted sessions bridging the gap between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students — an effort that the school formalized last week with the announcement of “Dartmouth Dialogues.”

JTA: You spoke to Jewish and Muslim students at Dartmouth.

Cardona: I learned that we’re able to create safe learning environments while also giving students an opportunity to express themselves [about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia].

I learned that the more you engage students in problem solving, the more likely it’s going to be successful.
You need a culture and a climate on campus that is willing to engage in problem-solving when conflicts arise. They have that at Dartmouth. It was there before Oct. 7.

How can the department address anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on campus?

It’s been getting increasingly worse even before the Oct. 7 attacks — to the point where I had a student when I visited Towson University, a Jewish student, who told me that he believes that it’s become normalized in our country to kind of brush aside anti-Semitism more so than any other form of hate and discrimination.

That to me was repulsive. As a father that really got to me, that there’s a student that thinks that anti-Semitism is normalized and treated differently. And that was even before the attacks.

This is an opportunity for colleges to stand up forcefully in protecting the safety of students on campus. I don’t want any Jewish students to feel like they have to hide symbols of their faith because of what’s happening on campus.

I don’t want any student to feel that they have to hide their identity to be successful on campus.

We’ve released Dear Colleague letters, which are basically letters of guidance to the field, to make sure that they know their responsibility under Title VI to keep students safe.

But even more fundamental than that, I think we’re at a point now where we have to be very direct, that students should not have to hide their identity or be ashamed of who they are or hide who they are on our college campuses.

It’s the responsibility of college presidents to act very clearly and unambiguously that student safety is their priority and that they’re going to listen and make sure that students feel that it’s taken seriously.

Your department has opened close to 50 Title VI investigations since Oct. 7.

The decisions on how to investigate are made by the Office for Civil Rights. When they have the request, they look at them very carefully.

The investigation requests, when accepted, open up an investigation [that is] very thorough. Students are spoken to and listened to, and it could even uncover something that wasn’t in the original investigation request.

We’ve opened over 45 in three months, which is almost double what was opened in four years in the last administration.

We take these threats and these beliefs of students of being unsafe on campus very seriously, and we’re going to thoroughly investigate them.

In the past, it took patterns of misbehavior before many Title VI investigations would be opened. Now some are opened over single incidents.

We are committed to ensuring, through our enforcement arm, that we are sending the message and investigating, thoroughly, issues that lead to student safety concerns on campus.

Are you directing more resources to Title VI?

In November, I asked Speaker of the House [Mike] Johnson for additional funding for the Office for Civil Rights.

We had 10,000 complaints in 2019 lodged to the Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights.

We had 19,000 in 2022. So we’re fighting for additional dollars there, instead of cuts, to the Office of Civil Rights.

But we’re also not going to change culture through memos or through investigations. We are just as passionate, and just as urgent, on developing resources, guidance, exemplars, technical assistance mechanisms for universities.

We’ve visited dozens of universities, members of our team. We’ve met with attorneys, we met with college presidents. You’ll see on our website a list of dozens of resources for campuses.

My visit today to Dartmouth was to see for myself and hear from students myself on what works, so that we could lift up best practices across the country.

So yes, we’re going to enforce and we’re unapologetic about them. But we’re also going to build capacity and give universities tools that we know work in other places to create safe learning environments. At the end of the day student safety is our No. 1 priority.

An official in your department, Tariq Habash, recently resigned over what he said was your failure to protect students who nonviolently advocate for Palestinians. How do you respond?

I wish Tariq well. He was a valued member of our team.

The work that we’ve done at the Biden-Harris administration, and in particular at the Dept. of Education, around protecting students, including students who are feeling threatened with anti-Semitism, we’ve done more than any other administration.

We’re going to continue to do it.

Student safety for me is not something that we go light on, we have to make sure we’re clear on it.

We need to be very clear with college presidents that it’s our expectation that when students are feeling unsafe, they are responding to students right away. And that they’re taking it very seriously.

A lot of university administrators seem to be slow to acknowledge that there is a problem.

You’re right. If there’s a lack of visibility from the leadership, it’s more likely that students are going to find unsafe ways to channel their frustrations. What we saw today at Dartmouth was when students are given an opportunity, because leadership owns the responsibility and acts on it, to create a safe learning environment and to listen to students.

I have my team ready to pick up the phone for any leader that is struggling with this and needs guidance and support. We have a technical assistance team that has been assembled. We have done numerous webinars, we’ve traveled to college campuses.

We’ve engaged with the Muslim Jewish Advocacy Center in New York City to help them serve as almost mentors to colleges and to K-12 district leaders. So we’re really modeling what we want to see from college leaders.

The student that told me that in this country he feels like we’ve normalized anti-Semitism: that message really resonated with me, and it upset me, to the point where, if that were my child, I would not feel comfortable wanting to send my child to a campus far away.

I want for that child what I would want for my own child, and that’s leadership that’s willing to stand up on the values that we have in this country that students should be safe on campus.

Critics of DEI programs say that they contribute to a hostile rhetoric for Jews because Jews are not always included, or they’re painted as oppressors.

In so many places across the country, we see DEI efforts reduced to just black and brown issues. As a Latino but also as an education leader, I think that’s unfortunate.

We need to look at Diversity, Equity, Inclusion as a place where conversations about religious identity or difference of opinions could be handled respectfully and civilly, like what I saw today on Dartmouth’s campus.

I think it’s unfortunate if they’re being viewed as anything but the right place to go when there are issues of inclusion or safety or belonging that plague our universities.

A well-developed DEI model includes opportunities for students to share the frustrations or concerns that they have on campus, relative to how they might be feeling with regard to anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or anti-Arab sentiment.

Some Jewish parents say that since Oct. 7 they’re uncomfortable sending their children to some universities because of the climate of anti-Semitism.

My heart goes out to those parents and it’s frustrating as secretary of education to hear that.

What I would tell those parents is that they have the right to discuss with the leadership of the university their feelings, because, quite frankly, parents can decide where they send their children.

Students learn best when they can be on campus, unapologetic of who they are. I wouldn’t want Jewish students to not feel comfortable expressing who they are, their feelings, even if it’s in disagreement with some other students on campus.

Those parents have the right, and those universities have the responsibility to ensure to those parents, that their students are going to learn in a safe learning environment; and that there are resources on campus for the students to go if they feel unsafe, but also where those students could go to express their pride in their culture and religious background and ancestry.