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Officials at Drexel University were proactive in responding to reports of antisemitic incidents on campus but still failed to meet the standard under federal law to combat discrimination, the U.S. Office for Civil Rights has found.
To end the federal investigation, Drexel agreed to a number of measures including reviewing its response to reports of antisemitic incidents and other shared ancestry discrimination in the past two academic years and taking any remedial action, if needed, under a resolution agreement released Friday.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has opened dozens of investigations into alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. That also covers discrimination based on shared ancestry, which includes antisemitism and Islamophobia. When a university receives a report of prohibited harassment or discrimination, it is obligated to respond, investigate, determine whether a hostile environment exists and then remedy the situation to prevent a hostile environment from persisting.
The investigation into Drexel was prompted by an Oct. 10 incident in which the decorations on a Jewish student’s room door were set on fire. The incident was initially investigated as a potential hate crime, though university officials found no evidence to support that. OCR found that the university’s response didn’t raise any Title VI concern. However, OCR investigators also reviewed 35 other incidents of alleged harassment based on shared ancestry from October 2022 to January 2024.
Those incidents showed a “growing, pervasive hostile environment,” investigators wrote, but the Drexel officials opted to address them on an individual basis—offering resources to the students affected, for instance.
When Drexel officials did assess whether there was a hostile environment on the campus, OCR investigations said they “misapplied the legal standard.” That included deciding that a graduate student's social media posts that were critical of Zionists or said Israel “must cease to exist” didn’t create or contribute to a hostile environment because it was off campus and online. Investigators wrote that the Title VI nondiscrimination standard requires the university to take steps to address any hostile environment related to shared ancestry, even if the conduct occurs off campus or on social media.
OCR investigators credited Drexel administrators with taking proactive steps to address the campus environment such as condemning antisemitism in public statements, meeting with campus Jewish and Muslim leaders, increasing security, and holding mandatory meetings with students in residence halls “to reinforce the importance of respecting the property of others, including religious symbols.” The university previously announced an external review of its policies.
