The Department of Education has found that two major American universities — the University of Michigan and the City University of New York — failed to respond to antisemitic incidents on their campuses in recent years. This is the first admonishment of American higher education institutions since the October 7 attacks and could open the door to more serious probes in the future.

The department’s Office of Civil Rights announced Monday that it had concluded its first investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the University of Michigan and found that it had reached a resolution with the school after several antisemitic incidents took place on campus since the October 7 attacks. 

In a letter to the University of Michigan’s general counsel, the Office of Civil Rights says the school failed to investigate 75 complaints of discrimination since the start of the 2022 school year. In one of those incidents, an anti-Israel student had posted a photo online with a Nazi hat with the caption, “Thriving.” When a Jewish student brought it to the university’s attention, no action was taken. 

The Office of Civil Rights “is concerned that the University appears not to have taken steps to assess whether incidents about which it had notice individually or cumulatively created a hostile environment for students, faculty, or staff, and, if so, to take steps reasonably calculated to end the hostile environment, remedy its effects, and prevent its recurrence,” the department wrote in a letter to the university. “In none of the reports summarized above did OCR identify any information in the documentation provided by the University that the University assessed whether a hostile environment was created for students, faculty, or staff.”

The University of Michigan, according to the department, has agreed to take a more proactive approach to allegations of antisemitism in the future, including by training investigators more rigorously and reporting to the Office of Civil Rights any actions taken by the university in response to discrimination allegations through the 2026 school year. 

At CUNY, the Department of Education found that allegations of antisemitic and anti-Arab racism went largely un-investigated and unpunished. “CUNY colleges and schools appear not to have conducted adequate investigations in response to reports of alleged harassment based on national origin/shared ancestry,” the department wrote in a press release. 

In the first allegation of antisemitism that was investigated, the education department said Hunter College made no effort to look into a 2021 incident where students interrupted two Zoom classes to demand a “decolonization of Palestine.” The office of civil rights “found that Hunter [College] concluded — without interviewing students present during the sessions — that the disruption did not deny access to education, and that Hunter did not respond to requests from Jewish students to learn Hunter’s response.”

In a letter to the chancellor of CUNY, department investigators say they determined antisemitic and anti-Arab incidents at Brooklyn College, CUNY Law School, Queens College, and Baruch College took place in the last several years. The department’s “concerns pertain to the … schools’ responses to discrimination, including the existence of a possible hostile environment based on national origin (including shared Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and/or South Asian ancestry and association with these national origins/shared ancestries).” The department also says the schools may have engaged in “disparate treatment based on national origin.”

In its action plan, CUNY has promised the education department that it will “reopen” past investigations into allegations of discrimination and pursue new investigations vigorously. CUNY has also pledged to offer a “climate survey” to students about discrimination and racism on campus, provide the department with results of Title VI investigations, and require training for those responsible for investigating discrimination complaints. 

In May, the secretary of education, Miguel Cardona, said in a letter that he was looking forward to providing a more robust response to accusations of antisemitism on college and university campuses once students return in the fall. The letter was sent in response to a series of antisemitic protests on campuses across the country that sprung up toward the end of the 2023–24 school year.