President Joe Biden's Department of Education reached an agreement with Johns Hopkins University to settle civil rights complaints that alleged widespread campus anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack. The agreement will see Hopkins, which did not admit wrongdoing, implement underwhelming reforms like general anti-discrimination training.
Hopkins agreed to "provide annual training to all employees and staff responsible for investigating complaints and other reports of discrimination" as well as general training "addressing discrimination based on race, color, and national origin" to all staff and students. The university will also conduct a survey "to evaluate the climate with respect to shared ancestry and the extent to which students and/or staff are subjected to, or witness discrimination." Hopkins will then report the survey results to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
Anti-Semitism at Hopkins especially reared its head in May when an Israeli Ph.D. student said she was "hit by a girl holding a Palestinian flag, right at the campus entrance." The girl "shouted at me to go back to Europe and hurled insults at me and Israelis," the Israeli student said in a recent interview about Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
In another example, a campus protester held a sign that read, "Go Hamas, from the river to the sea, finish the job" and featured a swastika, according to the Department of Education's investigation. On the anonymous campus social media platform Sidechat, one user described a Jewish student as a "witch," and another user described Jews as "people with more pointy noses." The Hopkins investigation, launched in February, found that the university did not adequately respond to those and other anti-Semitic incidents.
The Hopkins settlement closely resembles other anti-Semitism settlements the department reached in the last month with both Rutgers University and the University of California system. Both schools refused to admit wrongdoing and agreed to provide training to employees engaged in discrimination oversight.
Hopkins released a statement in April acknowledging that its "Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) has seen an increase in reports of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of religious hate in our community since last October, including incidents of hateful graffiti and comments on social media."
"All incidents reported to the Office of Institutional Equity or Johns Hopkins Public Safety are taken with the utmost seriousness and investigated," the university said. "The appropriate action is taken upon the conclusion of these investigations."
While the Biden Department of Education has opened scores of anti-Semitism investigations targeting other schools, many remain unresolved. In other cases, like the one at Hopkins, settlements have brought insignificant changes.
Hopkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.