The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is opening an investigation into allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination in higher education, contacting more than 60 learning institutions with a warning that if they fail to protect Jewish students on their campuses, they could face consequences up to and including the loss of federal funding.

The announcement, in a letter sent to top institutions like Yale, Brown, and Harvard, follows increasing pressure on university administrators to control pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which have occurred periodically on campuses nationwide over the past year and resulted in hundreds of arrests.

The newly installed Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, said in a statement on Monday the schools must “do better” and that their taxpayer funding obliges them to curb incidents of discrimination.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year. University leaders must do better,” she said. “U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers.” 

“That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws,” she said.

In early February, the Education Department announced that it was investigating five of the 60 universities on the list, including Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

According to the statement, the other 55 are either under open investigations or being monitored following complaints filed with the civil rights office.

The hardline approach continues a trend by the Trump administration, which has placed a priority on combating antisemitic incidents on college campuses.

Earlier this week, Mr. Trump announced that Columbia would be stripped of $400 million in federal funds for not stopping an organized intimidation campaign against Jewish students on campus. The move follows an executive order in which he called on federal agencies to revoke the visas of foreigners who “threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology.”

Mr. Trump’s announcement came after the weekend arrest of graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was a lead negotiator in the 2024 Gaza Solidarity encampment that paralyzed Columbia last spring and was recently involved in the occupation of the library at Barnard College, one of the Ivy League institution’s undergraduate colleges.