Updated: March 2, 2025, at 11:51 p.m.
A U.S. Department of Justice antisemitism task force on Friday announced it will visit GW and nine other universities that they said have experienced “antisemitic incidents” since the onset of the war in Gaza.
Leading Task Force Member Leo Terrell said in a press release Friday that the task force will meet with University leadership, “impacted” students and staff, local law enforcement and community members before they decide whether “remedial action” is warranted. The announcement comes after GW was one of ten universities accused by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in October of failing to sufficiently discipline pro-Palestinian protesters who violated University policies following an investigation into antisemitism on college campuses.
Six Republican members of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee also visited the pro-Palestinian encampment in University Yard in May, where they called on D.C. officials to arrest protesters involved in the demonstration.
University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division asked to meet with officials to discuss the steps they have taken, and continue to take, to combat antisemitism. She said GW has “long maintained” strong anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, which officials have articulated in GW’s Code of Conduct and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy.
Garbitt also said the University “recently” convened a group of officials and “outside advisors” to consider how GW can address the rise in antisemitism, where officials built on “lessons learned” and discussed how they could lay a foundation for “positive growth.” She said the University has demonstrated public support of GW’s Jewish community, as officials have rejected calls from pro-Palestinian protests for GW to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
She added that the University does not support academic boycotts or other actions called for by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Garbitt said GW has on several occasions “publicly and prominently” condemned acts of antisemitism and encouraged members of the community to report incidents and seek support.
“We will, of course, meet with the DOJ to fully brief them about these measures, and our ongoing commitment to fighting antisemitism and any other forms of discrimination on our campus,” Garbitt said in an email.
The Justice Department created the task force in early February in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 30 executive order that directed the DOJ to take “immediate action” to “investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”
Garbitt declined to comment on if the University is prepared for any potential consequences should the investigation reveal systemic failures in protecting Jewish students and faculty members.
A University spokesperson said the task force has not scheduled the meeting yet and officials do not have details about the agenda nor the participants.
The release says Terrell, the senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, notified the ten universities on Thursday that the task force was aware of allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination and that they could be in violation of federal law.
The task force will also visit Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, New York and Northwestern universities and the universities of California, Los Angeles, California, Berkeley, Minnesota and Southern California, per the release.
“The Task Force’s mandate is to bring the full force of the federal government to bear in our effort to eradicate antisemitism, particularly in schools,” Terrell said in the release. “These visits are just one of many steps this Administration is taking to deliver on that commitment.”
Terrell said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that the Department of Justice is going to use “every tool in the toolbox” against universities that the department alleges have allowed antisemitism to take place on campuses, including by taking legal action and pulling federal funding.
“We’re going to cut off their funding, we’re going to take criminal activity against those protestors, we’re going to alert these blue cities that allow this that you have to get actively involved,” Terrell said in the interview.
This post has been updated to include the following:
This post has been updated to include additional information on the Department of Justice’s plan to combat antisemitism on college campuses.
