Anti-Israel org calls on Dept of Ed to empower pro-Palestinian protesters ahead of Trump presidency
President-elect Donald Trump has expressed his opposition to disruptive protesters and vowed to ‘deport the foreign jihad sympathizers.’
Palestine Legal urged the federal government to take steps to empower and defend anti-Israel activists.
An anti-Israel organization that supports pro-Palestinian protesters has written a letter to the Department of Education, urging it to take action ahead of the start of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Palestine Legal, a group that aims to defend anti-Israel activists who have been responsible for widespread tumult on American campuses in 2024, wrote a letter on Nov. 25 to Catherine Lhamon, the Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education.
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The letter expresses concern over President-elect Donald Trump’s opposition to disruptive protesters, saying that his “supporters have put together a plan to crack down on protesters demanding Palestinian liberation, including: a call for the deportation of non-U.S.-citizen students protesting the genocide of Palestinians, intimidation campaigns to chill student speech, and the banning of curricula that teach about Palestine. President Trump himself has endorsed plans to deport students and ‘set [the Palestine solidarity] movement back 25 or 30 years’ by targeting student activists.”
During his campaign, Trump vowed to “deport the foreign jihad sympathizers . . . very quickly,” adding: “If you hate America, if you want to eliminate Israel, then we don’t want you in our country.”
Given Palestine Legal’s worries, the group urged Lhamon to take several actions, starting with cracking down on Title VI complaints.
Palestine Legal alleges that Title VI complaints are being used “to curtail free speech,” though supporters of such complaints point out that they have been repeatedly issued against universities that are accused of either promoting or not doing anything to fight against anti-Semitism.
Campus Reform’s Editor in Chief Dr. Zachary Marschall has filed 33 Title VI complaints, leading to 14 Department of Education investigations regarding anti-Semitism at different schools.
Palestine Legal also called on Lhamon to “provide guidance discouraging resort to law-enforcement responses.” It claims that “OCR can help protect students’ rights to engage in protected speech without fear of criminalization or police aggression.”
More than 3,000 students were arrested in 2024 for disruptive conduct on their respective campuses. Anti-Israel activists on campuses have routinely engaged in vandalism, anti-Semitic violence, harassment, and overt shows of support for terrorist groups like Hamas.
Palestine Legal also called on OCR to “refrain from issuing Title VI resolution letters and/or agreements (or otherwise dismissing mediated complaints) that mischaracterize anti-Zionist views as antisemitic.”
Some have criticized this viewpoint, noting that anti-Zionism can frequently act as a claim of defense against actual anti-Semitism.
“It is thus incumbent upon OCR to course-correct educational institutions and provide them with the necessary tools to protect all their students and not to criminalize, punish, censor, and repress some in order to shield others from ideological and political disagreement. A failure to do so will effectively pave the road for just such an agenda to succeed starting in January,” the letter concludes.
Campus Reform has reached out to Palestine Legal for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
