New York University students stage a protest in Washington Square Park in Manhattan to oppose Israel and call for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 25, 2023. Photo: Gordon Donovan/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

Amid an explosion of antisemitic outrages at US colleges and universities, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday announced a new campaign calling on higher education institutions to pledge to eradicating antisemitism on their campuses.

Titled “Not on My Campus,” the initiative includes the launch of a new website, notoleranceforantisemitism.org, which offers campus stakeholders such as students and alumni collaborative tools for tracking antisemitic incidents at their institutions and bringing them to the attention of administrative officials. Additionally, the ADL has issued “a core demand” that colleges enforce their student codes of conduct against perpetrators of antisemitic hatred, a practice that is lacking on campuses and last semester forced the resignation of two Ivy League presidents who refused to say before a congressional committee whether calling for a genocide of Jews violates school rules.

The ADL is also moving ahead with a new evaluative assessment of colleges’ handling of antisemitic hatred, which will involve issuing a “report card” that parents, students, and high school seniors can use to decide whether an institution is serious about combating antisemitism. Another initiative — Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL) — launched in partnership with Hillel International, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, and Gibson and Dunn & Crutcher LLP that offers legal aid to victims of antisemitic discrimination is already operating.

“It is unacceptable that Jewish students find themselves in a position where they are being made to feel increasingly unsafe and unwelcome on their own college campuses,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement announcing the effort. “As an urgent priority, colleges and universities must rigorously enforce their codes of conduct to protect against antisemitism, just as they do for other forms of identity-based harassment and discrimination.”

US college campuses have experienced an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — since Oct. 7, 2023. In a two month span, ADL recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses alone. During that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.

Before the end of 2023, the ADL called out American colleges and universities in an open letter, reminding them of their obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment and intimidation.

“Shockingly, many students engaging in this activity — including harassment, intimidation, and other clear violations of student codes of conduct — have not faced consequences,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote in the letter. “This is unacceptable. Full stop.”

The campus climate has, in many instances, pushed Jewish identity underground. More than one in three Jewish college students reporting feeling the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus after Oct. 7, according to a new survey conducted by Hillel International. A striking 37 percent of Jewish students said they have needed to hide their Jewish identity and 35 percent of respondents said there have been acts of hate or violence against Jews on their campus. A majority of those surveyed said they were unsatisfied with their university’s response to those incidents.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.