The University of Pennsylvania is gaslighting the courts on antisemitism

Jonathan S. Tobin

The University of Pennsylvania’s Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Credit: NM Giovannucci via Wikimedia Commons.

Give credit to the University of Pennsylvania for one thing. It’s not short on chutzpah.

The school has brazenly tolerated and even encouraged widespread and blatant acts of antisemitism on campus since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But when an agency of the federal government sought to probe what had happened, Penn stonewalled requests for cooperation and transparency.

Faced with such intransigence, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a subpoena asking for the school’s records, including the identification of employees who could have been exposed to alleged harassment and the names of all employees who complained about the behavior. In its quest to find people potentially affected, the EEOC demanded a list of employees in Penn’s Jewish Studies Program. That was in addition to a list of all clubs, groups, organizations and recreation groups related to the Jewish religion, including points of contact and a roster of members, and the names of employees who lodged antisemitism complaints.

Who is defending the Jews?

But instead of complying with an effort to fight antisemitism, the school again said “no.” It is now alleging that the request is unconstitutional and a violation of the privacy of its employees and students. More than that, as its legal response asserted, it is now claiming to be defending Jewish students, employees and faculty by failing to cooperate with the government investigation.

In this bizarro view of reality, Penn is acting as if it is the government agency that is seeking to investigate antisemitism and defend its victims from behavior the university allowed to happen—that is the party that is targeting Jews. Predictably, corporate liberal media like The New York Times and The Guardian are cheering on the academic institution and claiming that it’s the Trump administration in the wrong.

Just as predictably, this stand is being supported by many members of Penn’s Jewish faculty, many of whom may privately acknowledge that there is antisemitism is present in their ranks but simply don’t want to go on record supporting anything the Trump administration does.

In this way, this drama is playing out in a similar fashion to the arguments about the Trump administration’s efforts to punish universities like Harvard, which is guilty of the same behavior the University of Pennsylvania is being called to account for. Harvard and many other schools have refused government settlement offers that would force them to pay fines and change their policies with respect to the treatment of Jews and the demonization of the State of Israel.

They have stuck to that position even if it means that, as is the government’s obligation under the Title VI provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. This shows that they value their right to be antisemitic more than they do their mission to conduct medical research. Instead, Trump’s liberal critics have spun the issue as one revolving around their assertion that the administration is attempting to suppress the free speech and academic freedom of Hamas supporters. Even many in the liberal establishment condemned the government’s stand as harming vital institutions rather than conceding that these schools were morally compromised and needed to be held accountable.

A refusal to act

There may be room for debate about the advisability of the EEOC’s far-ranging subpoena. Indeed, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the legal director of The Deborah Project, a public interest law firm devoted to fighting antisemitism, who supports the administration’s efforts, said the EEOC’s request was too broad and should have been accompanied by promises of confidentiality. But what is not in doubt is that the University of Pennsylvania is essentially gaslighting the public on the issue. Far from shielding Penn’s Jewish community from potential discrimination, the school’s virtue-signaling about its willingness to stand up to the president is rooted in a refusal to actually roll back an atmosphere of bigotry that it and the rest of the academic establishment have created when it comes to one specific minority in their midst.

As has been the case elsewhere in academia, Jews were harassed and targeted for intimidation by pro-Hamas mobs chanting slogans calling for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the intifada”). Then-president Liz Magill testified before Congress in December 2023 that it depended on “the context” as to whether advocacy for Jewish genocide was against the school’s rules. Just a month before Oct. 7, the school hosted a “Palestine Writes” conference on campus, where Jew-hatred was already rampant, despite complaints by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish.

When the Jewish community and other decent people complained about all this, the university slow-walked or simply failed to provide any accountability for those responsible for the creation of what was clearly a hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty.

So, it was hardly surprising the EEOC sought to investigate what had happened at Penn. The agency was not alone in this regard. Their action followed lawsuits filed in federal courts by Penn students, formal complaints initiated at the U.S. Department of Education, as well as public statements by university board members, donors and alumni, many of whom have disassociated themselves from the university because it failed to counteract or reverse what had become a dismal situation for Jews at the West Philadelphia campus. And it’s not as if the school administration had not acknowledged the problem, as a letter issued by Magill a month after Oct. 7 stated, in which she acknowledged that the school was facing a crisis.

“I am appalled by incidents on our own campus, and I’ve heard too many heartbreaking stories from those who are fearful for their safety right here at Penn,” she said in 2023. “This is completely unacceptable.”

Why are they getting away with it?

Nevertheless, Penn’s response to the EEOC has been to pretend as if none of this has happened and to disingenuously pose as the defenders of the very population it has allowed to be abused. And much of the court of public opinion seems to be buying it.

Why are they getting away with it?

One reason is partisanship. Throughout academia in general, liberals and Democrats dominate.

Within the liberal arts, those who dissent from left-wing ideology have become something of an endangered species. Since the ability to get tenured academic appointments depends on the votes of senior colleagues, this has created a situation in which fewer and fewer professors are anything but liberals. This is especially true at elite schools. While current figures for the ideological or partisan breakdown of professors at Penn are not available, a recent survey at a comparable institution—Yale University—revealed that 82.3% of the 1,666 faculty members examined were registered Democrats or on record supporting Democratic candidates, while only 2.3% were Republicans. Of 43 departments that grant undergraduate degrees, 27 had zero Republican faculty members.

The growing lack of ideological diversity on campuses is having a direct impact on the surge of Jew-hatred. Given the hatred for Trump on the left, these people seem willing to oppose virtually anything his administration does, even when it is fighting something as awful as antisemitism.

More to the point, most so-called “progressives” in academia have bought into the fashionable toxic ideas of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism that not only exacerbate racial divisions, but also falsely label Jews and Israel as “white” oppressors. It is this belief system, coupled with the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), that fosters indoctrination and punishes dissent, and has made elite campuses like that of Penn places where Jew-hatred has flourished.

This should lead reasonable persons, regardless of their political affiliation, to concede that addressing the problem requires a fundamental shift in how these schools conduct hiring and admissions, as well as to re-evaluate what sort of teaching they tolerate. Yet much of academia—bolstered by the political left and even conventional liberals who just hate Trump—continues to prefer to pretend that the real problem is the president and others who have noticed this scandalous situation.

This is not the first time that the political left has claimed that Trump’s efforts to combat antisemitism, which are more far-reaching and serious than anything his predecessors have attempted, are themselves antisemitic. In 2019, when Trump, following the precedent of rulings handed down by previous administrations, signed an executive order declaring that the Title VI protections of the Civil Rights Act applied to Jews, many on the left treated it as not just wrong but an act of hatred in itself. This was similar to the refusal to comply with the EEOC subpoena. At the time, many on the left said that declaring that being Jewish was a category of persons that deserved protection under the law somehow made Jews vulnerable to official discrimination.

Trump derangement syndrome

It made no sense. But when it comes to this particular issue, it seems that the president’s opponents, including those who are themselves Jewish, are simply too stricken with what is commonly called “Trump derangement syndrome” to be able to think clearly about his actions. This is true even when they might otherwise agree that antisemitism is something that not only shouldn’t be tolerated but ought to be punished, as the law states, with the loss of federal funds.

Marcus sees this as a manifestation of something that goes even deeper than partisan loyalties and attitudes toward Trump. “If you are a Jew and you believe that the University of Pennsylvania is a place where faculty and staff have experienced antisemitism, then what the EEOC is doing is an effort to right a wrong,” Marcus says. “I personally know there are many Jews at Penn who believe there has been and is a hostile environment created or at least condoned by Penn. But because of the way the subpoena was worded, Penn, with the help of the media, was able to successfully manipulate the mass, generational PTSD which most Jews have inherited as the result of the millennia-long persecution of Jews.”

She says this “reflexive response” to the creation of any list of Jews that includes names and identifying information is boiled down to a simple assertion that “the EEOC wants a list of Penn’s Jews.” Marcus thinks the unspoken ending of that phrase is “to round us up.” As a result, these Jews are “circling the wagons” around the very institution that is actually enabling antisemitism and thwarting administration efforts to do something about it.

We can only hope that, as with other aspects of the administration’s necessary and unprecedented push to rid academia of its bias against Jews, the courts won’t ultimately side with the institutions. In the meantime, instead of joining in the efforts to smear efforts to roll back the progressive project that has enabled the current crisis, responsible Jewish academics, organizations and community leaders should be applauding Trump’s stand and labeling Penn’s conduct for what it is: brazen gaslighting that seeks to cover up their guilt.

– Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Przejście graniczne z Egiptem w Rafah. (Fot. REUTERS/Stringer)

Strefa Gazy: Przejście graniczne z Egiptem w Rafah otwarte. Na razie tylko częściowo

Marta Urzędowska

W poniedziałek 2 lutego po wielomiesięcznej przerwie otwarto przejście graniczne między Strefą Gazy a Egiptem w Rafah. Może nim przechodzić niewielka liczba osób, wyłącznie poruszających się pieszo. Przejście nie będzie służyło dostarczaniu pomocy humanitarnej.

Pierwsze osoby przeszły przez przejście w Rafah w poniedziałek rano. W pierwszym dniu otwarcia przejścia zgodę na przekroczenie granicy z Egiptem dostało 59 Palestyńczyków.

Każdego dnia w obie strony będzie mogło przejść kilkadziesiąt osób. Przez przejście w Rafah nie będzie wpuszczana pomoc humanitarna dla mieszkańców Gazy ani towary komercyjne.

Porządku na przejściu będą pilnować cywilni obserwatorzy z Unii Europejskiej i urzędnicy z Autonomii Palestyńskiej. Izraelska armia będzie przeprowadzać kontrole bezpieczeństwa, choć nie na samym przejściu. Strona egipska będzie przekazywać Izraelczykom każdego dnia listę chętnych do przejścia w obie strony, a izraelskie władze będą ją zatwierdzać.

Choć w Gazie obowiązuje rozejm, sytuacja jest daleka od spokoju. W ostatnią sobotę w izraelskich nalotach zginęło co najmniej 26 osób, wśród nich kilkoro dzieci. Izraelska armia wyjaśnia, że zaatakowała z powodu naruszania przez terrorystów warunków rozejmu w rejonie Rafah, a celem byli wyłącznie członkowie Hamasu.

Redagowała Ludmiła Anannikova

Trump shouldn’t fall into the Iran negotiations trap

Jonathan S. Tobin

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the America Business Forum Miami at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Fla., Nov. 5, 2025. Credit: Molly Riley/White House.

President Donald Trump was re-elected to the presidency to drain the swamp in Washington, push back the tide of illegal immigration and roll back the dead hand of toxic woke leftism in American government and society. He wasn’t returned to the White House to enact regime change in Iran or anywhere else. Those two basic truths are the foundation of any argument on behalf of the United States not getting actively involved in the effort to topple the Islamists theocrats in Tehran.

Still, there’s another angle from which to consider that question.

Whatever else was on his agenda or that of his voters, it is equally true that the second Trump administration was not summoned into existence to re-enact the failed foreign policy of former President Barack Obama. And that’s the main thing for the president and his team to remember as they engage in negotiations this week with Iran.

The Islamist regime is sending senior officials to Turkey, where they plan to meet with the president’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, as well as his son-in-law and informal adviser, Jared Kushner. The United States says that a whole range of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, missiles and terrorism, is on the table. The Iranians say they want only to discuss the nuclear issue.

Obama’s Iran folly

But that is a formula for Iran to do what it has always done with Western, and especially American, envoys who are desperate for a deal with the mullahs: prevaricate and string the diplomats along until they give up or give in to Tehran’s demands.

That’s what happened to Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry, who arrived at talks with Iran in 2013 with a strong hand backed by global sanctions that had shaken a regime that was tottering due to domestic unrest. Over the course of the next two years, Kerry abandoned Obama’s demands and campaign promises to end Iran’s nuclear program and to end its role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. The result was the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that actually guaranteed that the country would eventually get a nuclear weapon, rather than preventing it from building or acquiring one.

It rescued the Islamist theocrats from the predicament that they had created at home and flooded it with billions in cash used to suppress dissent at home and spread terror around the Middle East.

That’s exactly what Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is hoping will happen again in talks with Trump’s team. It comes at a time when his government has been shaken by massive protests in the past few weeks, which have been suppressed by the murder of as many as 30,000 protesters. Khamenei knows he needs a lifeline. He knows that a repeat of last summer’s joint Israeli-American air campaign aimed at weakening the regime’s ability to project terror abroad might be the spark that finally blows up the Islamist government. A deal right now with Washington will ensure that it survives and lives to fight the “great Satan”—ironically, the United States, the same entity that may give it a lifeline—and Israel, the “little Satan.

That would be bad enough. But the spectacle of repeating the pattern of Obama’s appeasement of Iran by repudiating his promises to the Iranian people that “help is on the way” would be a disaster for Trump’s foreign policy and embolden foes around the globe.

Members of the Iranian Jewish community in Holon, in central Israel, hold a demonstration in support of people and protesters in Iran, Jan. 24, 2026. Photo by Erik Marmor/Flash90.

A ‘red line’ precedent

It would also seem to be a repeat of another Obama fiasco. Obama backed off on his 2012 threat to Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying if the despot were to use chemical weapons against his own people, then it would cross a “red line” and ensure a U.S. military response. Nothing came of that; it was another milepost on the road to American decline. By punting on the threat and offshoring the job of dealing with the problem to Russia, Obama threw away American credibility, handing Tehran and its allies a huge and undeserved victory for its plans for regional hegemony.

For the same thing to happen to Trump would be an even greater disaster since his foreign-policy successes have been based on the fact that foreign adversaries and allies have been reluctant to test his mettle in a confrontation. If, under pressure from critics on the far right and far left who oppose a strong stance against Iran, Trump wilts, then no one will or should take his threats seriously again.

It’s entirely true that Trump and the American people would prefer to avoid using military force against Iran, as well as have zero interest in fighting a land war there or engaging in “nation-building.” Washington won’t repeat President George W. Bush’s mistaken policies that landed America and its troops in an Iraqi quagmire. But neither can Trump afford to demonstrate weakness just at the moment when he needs to project strength if he is to deal with this and other ongoing difficulties, like ending the war in Ukraine.

Witkoff and Kushner’s hubris

The dilemma here is partly the trap that talking with an insincere negotiating partner always provides. Trump, Witkoff and Kushner all believe themselves to be master negotiators because of their past work in real estate, coupled with the administration’s successes during the president’s first term, such as brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel and four Muslim-majority countries.

Yet they have already signaled that, like Kerry, they are far too eager for a deal with a regime that is at its best and most lethal when it is pretending to be reaching an agreement with the United States.

The problem, however, transcends the hubris that Witkoff and Kushner will pack in the bags they take to Istanbul. It is also about how to define the Trump approach to foreign policy.

“America First” means viewing the world through a realist prism rather than one determined by fantasies about a rapprochement with people whose main goal is to destroy the West. It also means overturning the conventional wisdom of the D.C. establishment about the value of appeasing the Islamist terror regime and ensuring that it is not allowed to use its oil wealth, nuclear program or its terrorist forces to destabilize the Mideast. And it means helping those who are aiding American foreign-policy goals without necessarily doing all the fighting for them.

Far from an isolationist creed, Trump’s vision is one that is essentially about projecting and embodying American strength abroad. That’s in direct contrast with the sort of weakness that led to the outbreak of wars in the Middle East and Ukraine in the four years Biden was warming Trump’s seat in the Oval Office.

That’s why Trump joined Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program last June and inflicted the sort of damage that makes it unlikely that they will be able to use it to achieve their dream of regional hegemony.

And it’s also why Trump ought not to fall into the trap of negotiations with Iran just at the moment when a decisive push against them, both via sanctions and strategic strikes, might enable the Iranian people to overthrow the regime that has murdered and oppressed them for the last 47 years.

It’s not just that everyone knows that no deal with Iran could be verified by independent monitors of either its media or that the regime could be trusted to keep. They’ve cheated on the nuclear pact they made with Obama and virtually every other deal the regime has signed since the Islamist movement toppled the Shah of Iran in 1979.

Making Trump a lame duck

So, if Trump backs down on anything less than a change in the fundamental character of the Iranian regime and its transformation into a reasonable neighbor rather than the home base for terrorism, the damage he’ll be doing to himself will be as great as it is to the Iranian people’s hopes for a governmental alternative.

Few presidents have more at stake in maintaining their reputations than those who can’t be trifled with or bested in a negotiation. Surrendering to Iran will inevitably lead to surrendering to Hamas in Gaza. It would also end any hope of concluding Russia’s war with Ukraine on terms the West can live with or deterring global power grabs by an empowered China. It would also impair his ability to act for the rest of his term in office, which is still three full years.

We can’t know what the ultimate outcome of a U.S. or a joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran looks like or what all the consequences of such a policy would be. But we do know that failing to follow through on his threats would make Trump a lame duck on foreign policy and pin on him the responsibility for future massacres of Iranians by their Islamist tyrants. That’s a price the president simply cannot afford.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Steven Spielberg Reaches EGOT Status After Winning First Grammy Award

Shiryn Ghermezian

Steven Spielberg. Photo: BANG Showbiz via Reuters

Steven Spielberg officially became an EGOT winner on Sunday night after winning a Grammy for producing the “Music by John Williams” documentary that won in the best music film category.

The Jewish filmmaker took home his first Grammy win during a non-televised ceremony that took place before the main awards show. This was also the first year that he was nominated for a Grammy.

Spielberg is the 22nd person to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony in their careers. That list includes Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks, Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, John Legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jennifer Hudson, Viola Davis, and composers Marvin Hamlisch, Richard Rodgers, and Alan Menken.

Spielberg is also reportedly the ninth Jewish person to reach EGOT status. The most recent Jewish person to secure the EGOT title before Spielberg was songwriter Benj Pasek in 2024.

Spielberg previously won four Emmys, for “The Pacific,” “Band of Brothers,” “Steven Spielberg Presents: A Pinky & The Brain Christmas,” and “Steven Spielberg Presents Taken.” He has three Oscars, including two for “Schindler’s List” and one for “Saving Private Ryan,” and a Tony award for producing the Broadway show “A Strange Loop.”

“Music by John Williams” is about the famed composer and conductor who has had 54 Oscar nominations and five wins. He has composed music for film franchises — such as “Star Wars,” “Home Alone,” “Jurassic Park,” “Harry Potter,” and “Indiana Jones” — as well as other iconic films and television shows including “Gilligan’s Island,” “Schindler’s List,” “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” and “Saving Private Ryan.”