FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Contact: National Campus Jewish Alliance: campusjewishalliance@gmail.com 

New National Network of Jewish Academics Urges Civil Rights Commission to Reject Cynicism, and Instead Celebrate Diversity, Safeguard Academic Freedom, Defend Civil Rights For All  

New York – One year after federal immigration officials abducted Rumeysa Ozturk on pretextual accusations of antisemitism, multiple chapters of the National Campus Jewish Alliance (NCJA) urged the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) to reject cynicism and adopt an approach to antisemitism that celebrates diversity, safeguards academic freedom, and defends civil rights for all. 

The NCJA, a national network of Jewish academics, coalesced in 2025 and 2026 around shared commitments to critical inquiry, freedom of expression, and multiracial democracy. Each local chapter came together in response to concerns on its own campuses, ranging from federal threats and lawsuits to ill-conceived policies by university administrations. Many members found each other through a “Not In Our Name” letter signed by thousands of Jewish academics in March 2025. The chapters joined into a national network in early 2026, adopting Points of Unity that emphasize academic freedom, free speech, and the importance of fighting both antisemitism and its weaponization. 

In its submission to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, NCJA’s California Chapter opened by highlighting the “vibrant and pluralistic” nature of Jewish life on their campuses. “Any serious discussion of antisemitism and Zionism,” the California Chapter reminded USCCR members, “must begin by recognizing this diversity.” The California chapter further identified the intracommunal contestation that exists within the Jewish community:

What we have increasingly observed, however, is the misuse of antisemitism allegations by individuals and institutions both on and off campus, including by Jewish institutions such as Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League. . . . Most disturbing is the way that allegations of antisemitism are inflammatory, exacerbate tensions and create real conditions of unsafety: At UCLA, a student protest encampment was subjected to a violent mob attack by outside counter-protestors after weeks of public rhetoric portraying student protestors as antisemites—even though many were themselves Jews. 

NCJA’s University of Virginia (UVA) chapter emphasized their personal experiences of antisemitism: “We at UVA have experienced antisemitism up close. During the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, neo-Nazis marched on our campus with tiki torches and chanted  “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” We understand profoundly the ways that we as Jews are vulnerable. 

Against this backdrop, the UVA chapter highlighted two dynamics: “First, antisemitism on U.S. college campuses, including UVA, demands attention. Second, the fight against antisemitism is being weaponized in ways that hurt Jews.” On the latter point, the UVA Chapter emphasized that “deploying allegations of antisemitism to shut down debate and limit viewpoint diversity on college campuses . . . means suppressing Jewish voices . . . [and that] erroneously conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with antisemitism suggests that Jews, by definition, support the Israeli government.” This “makes us targets of hostility and violence.”

NCJA’s University of Washington chapter, the University of Washington Jewish Alliance (UWJA), likewise highlighted the diversity within the Jewish communities and patterns of bullying that Jewish Zionists direct at their non-Zionist Jewish colleagues:    

Some of us have experienced casual antisemitism on campus that has included comments in our presence about Jewish wealth or political control. Some of us have faced disdain or pressure in our workplaces surrounding requests for accommodations needed to observe religious holidays or abide by Sabbath or dietary restrictions. Some of the most intensely antisemitic comments many of us have received, however, are from other Jews who suggest that we are not real Jews, or that we are traitors to the Jewish people if we are not Zionist, and therefore have no authority to speak about our experience as Jews. This is extremely damaging to our sense of belonging within our campus communities.

It is antisemitic to presume that a person is Zionist just because they are Jewish, and it is likewise antisemitic to declare that if a Jew is not Zionist it means that they are not legitimate Jews, that they have been brainwashed, that they have taken on their beliefs solely “to be accepted by leftists” or “to be accepted by Palestinians,” or that they have betrayed the Jewish people by understanding Jewishness in a different way.

The UW Chapter closed by linking the fight against antisemitism to a collective project that ensures robust democratic norms and civil rights for all: 

We believe that the best protection for the civil rights of Jews on campus is robust protection of the civil rights of everyone on campus—students, faculty, and staff. Enforcing a specific view of Jewishness (for example that Jews necessarily support the state of Israel, or that Zionism is a core tenet for all Jews) harms Jews on campus by effectively suggesting that any Jew who does not share these views is ipso facto not Jewish and therefore the experiences of those Jews are not salient in discussions of what it means to protect Jews on campus.

The New England NCJA affiliate Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff (CJFS), with individual members spanning more than 40 campuses, opened by locating the Trump regime as the most potent domestic source of antisemitism:

One year ago, federal agents detained several non-citizen students including Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk. In an important September 2025 federal court ruling in AAUP v. Rubio, federal judge William Young found that these detentions proceeded “under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition of antisemitism” and violated scholars’ and students’ First Amendment rights. In revoking Öztürk’s student visa, court proceedings revealed, State Department officials had relied on nothing more than a printout from the defamation agency Canary Mission and federal officials’ gut sense that pro-Palestinian speech was presumptively antisemitic.

CJFS urged the USCCR to adopt an approach to antisemitism “consistent with America’s highest ideals and commitments to racial equality, civil rights and civil liberties.” CJFS specifically directed the USCCR to (a) CJFS’s November 2025 guidance for addressing antisemitism consistent with democratic values and (b) a May 2025 letter signed by over 3,400 Jewish academics. CJFS reminded the USCCR to avoid the “vague, self-contradictory, and easily weaponized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance” (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.  

“We are indignant,” wrote CJFS, “that our Jewish identity has been hijacked to serve malicious or misguided efforts to silence dissenting speech. We are dismayed at the damage already wrought to our universities. And we are horrified by the further outrages this crusade has licensed; as Judge Young pointed out, not even 19th-century Fugitive Slave Act enforcers felt the need to wear masks on the street as Öztürk’s attackers did. But we are hopeful that your Commission will speak simply and clearly about these abuses and help to rein them in.” 

Multiple NCJA members also provided public comment to the Commission in a video-recorded session on February 20.

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The National Campus Jewish Alliance is a national network of diverse groups of Jewish higher education workers – led by faculty, PhD students, and staff – united by our commitments to critical inquiry, freedom of expression, and multiracial democracy on our campuses and beyond. We organize against the misuse of Jewish history, memory, and identity to erode higher education, silence dissent, and advance authoritarian projects locally, nationally, and internationally.