Department of Education opens Title VI investigation into Vanderbilt University: EXCLUSIVE

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title VI investigation into Vanderbilt University over an anti-Semitism complaint.

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation Tuesday in response to a 2024 complaint from Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Zachary Marschall. 

Marschall’s complaint centers around a professor who posted a picture to social media that justified Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which he contends allowed a hostile environment for Jewish students at Vanderbilt University.

The professor, Ayesha Khan, “posted a graphic on social media celebrating and justifying the rape and murder of innocent Jewish civilians on October 7,” Marschall wrote in his complaint.

[RELATED: Vanderbilt ‘wokescientist’ defends ‘any means necessary’ from Hamas]

Khan posted the graphic on October 8, 2023, which defended the Hamas attack.

“The Palestinian people are resisting 75 years of settler colonialism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid & a violent, brutal military occupation,” the infographic stated. “This is what decolonization looks like. This is what a revolution takes. This is what land defense means.”

The Office for Civil Rights wrote in its letter that it will investigate whether a hostile environment was created for Jewish students at Vanderbilt.

[RELATED: Vanderbilt University suspends, expels students who occupied chancellor’s office during pro-Palestinian protest]

”OCR will investigate the following issue: whether the University responded to an alleged hostile environment for students based on national origin (shared Jewish ancestry) consistent with the requirements of Title VI,” the Office for Civil Rights wrote in a letter to Marschall.

Campus Reform reached out to Vanderbilt University for comment.