College campuses embroiled in allegations of antisemitism are bracing for a possible crackdown by the Trump administration, but uncertainty looms.
President Donald Trump signed an executive orderduring his second week in office promising to “combat antisemitism” on college campuses – by potentially revoking visas and directing universities to “monitor” and “report” on international students and staff.
But experts question both the legality of the order and the logistics of enforcement, leaving administrators, staff and students unclear about what it will mean for them.
Lee Bollinger, president emeritus of Columbia University, told CNN that he supports a heightened focus on combating antisemitism, though he is concerned about the Trump administration’s approach.
“I do believe universities are trying as hard as they can to find a balance between protecting free speech and protecting students, especially Jewish students, against discrimination and harassment,” said Bollinger, who remains a professor at Columbia Law School.
“When you have an executive order that appears to be ready to intrude into university campuses with the power of the government on issues around speech and discrimination, I am worried,” he said.
The executive order is the Trump administration’s response to a surge of antisemitic incidents on college campuses that began following Hamas’ deadly October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel – that killed more than 1,200 people. About 250 people were taken hostage by Hamas and other groups. Israel then launched a war on Hamas in Gaza, resulting in more than 40,000 casualties, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The 2023 to 2024 academic year saw widespread campus unrest, including pro-Palestinian protests and encampments, counterprotests, building takeovers, arrests and scaled-back graduation ceremonies at schools like Columbia and the University of Southern California.
A fact sheet published with the order says the administration could revoke visas for and deport international students who commit antisemitic acts: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
Students speak out
Like Bollinger, many students who spoke with CNN broadly welcomed action against continued antisemitism on campus. Yet they are divided about whether President Trump’s framework is the answer.
Noah Rubin, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, supports the executive order as a clearer stance on tackling antisemitism on college campuses and making Jewish students feel safe.
“I really want to see the enforcement,” Rubin told CNN. “I want to see the accountability come in.”
Rubin, who testified before Congress in February 2024 about antisemitism on college campuses, said he and his fellow Jewish students are still targets of antisemitism across campus, making many feel unsafe.
Indeed, Jewish student organization Hillel International says there have been 1,104 antisemitic incidents on college campuses so far in the 2024-2025 academic year as of February 10, and 1,854 in the 2023-2024 year. This year included multiple high-profile incidents at schools including the University of Rochester and Columbia.
Students who spoke to CNN said pro-Palestinian protests this academic year appear to have lessened somewhat compared to last year. And in January, Israel and Hamas entered a ceasefire agreement, and many of the hostages held by Hamas and other groups, continue to be released.
Still, last month saw at least two antisemitic incidents at Columbia University alone: Masked protestors disrupted a class on the History of Modern Israel by handing out flyers with violent imagery, and in a separate incident, bathrooms at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) were vandalized with graffiti targeting SIPA’s dean, who is Israeli, according to the university.
Perpetrators of antisemitic acts “need to be held accountable,” Rubin said.
“If students come here on a visa and they break the law—especially in any way that intimidates, harasses, or assaults a Jewish student—they should be deported,” he added. “I think that’s pretty common sense.”
But other students denounced President Trump’s executive order as being politically motivated.
“This executive order is not about protecting Jewish students,” said Sophie Levitt, a Jewish student and senior at Arizona State University. “It’s about restricting our right to free speech.”
Levitt, who co-chairs the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group, said the executive order has created uncertainty on campus about how administrators might respond and has raised concerns about clamping down on protected political speech.
Universities contacted by CNN – including Columbia, The University of Pennsylvania, ASU, UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan – either declined to comment, said they are examining Trump’s executive orders, or directed us to public statements about navigating policy changes from the federal government.
At the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Adam Rihvi is the vice president of the school’s SJP organization. He said Trump’s executive order did not intimidate him but instead reinforced his sense of purpose toward advocating for the Palestinian cause.
“Just the fact that we’re just a handful of students, and we’re able to create so much change … it’s more empowering than it is scary in a sense,” Rihvi said.
Most American students involved in UMN’s SJP have continued participating in events – but he said many international students feel differently.
In fact, UMN’s SJP advised international students not to attend their events after the executive order was announced, and many stopped coming. One international student asked Rihvi to remove an image of them on SJP’s social media, fearful of potential deportation for participating in a protest, he said.
“The threat is too big for what it’s worth,” Rihvi said. “We don’t want to risk anyone getting deported just for coming to a protest and exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Lack of clarity
Experts say they anticipate Trump’s executive order to pose legal and operational challenges for university administrators.
“There is certainly a heightened feeling of uncertainty among university administrators, as the executive order’s broad language leaves room for interpretation and potential overlap with other enforcement mechanisms,” said Ronak D. Desai, a partner at Paul Hastings LLP who leads the firm’s congressional investigations practice.
Desai said the biggest takeaway from the executive order is that universities’ compliance with civil rights laws like Title VI of the Civil Rights Act “will now be closely scrutinized both in the context of antisemitism as well as other broader Trump Administration priorities.”
“Institutions must now be proactive in reviewing their policies, incident reporting mechanisms and campus initiatives,” Desai added. Yet “administrators must also remain mindful of how enforcement efforts implicate constitutional protections, such as students’ First Amendment rights, that are sacrosanct in the university context.”
The order does not explicitly call for the deportation of international students, but it instructs government agencies to “familiarize” universities with the “grounds for inadmissibility” and the potential removal of student visas, according to Carrie DeCell, a senior staff attorney and legislative adviser at the Knight First Amendment Institute.
“What the order seems to call for is government pressure on universities to report on the expressive and associational activities of their students,” DeCell said, “knowing that those reports may lead to government efforts to revoke their students visas and remove them from the country.”
Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at UCLA, told CNN that the executive order is a “heavy-handed” approach to combating antisemitism that raises the concern of scapegoating international students.
“Foreign international students and staff who violate their terms of their entry to the US could already be deported if they engage in criminal activity, so it doesn’t actually change that,” Waxman said. “I’m concerned that the executive order can scapegoat those students and staff and faculty who are, of course, vulnerable by virtue of the fact that they’re not citizens.”
More broadly, the Trump administration’s focus specifically on college campuses instead of on antisemitism in the US in general misses an opportunity to get at the root of the issue, Waxman said. He pointed to examples like antisemitic social media posts on X that he said could be overlooked amid the intense scrutiny of students.
Further, Waxman said, the order could produce a “chilling effect” on free speech and academic freedom on college campuses, which are supposed to be environments where dialogue about difficult issues is encouraged.
“If you want to address antisemitism… undoubtedly (do that),” Waxman said. “But I think you have to be very wary about imposing restrictions on, monitoring, or punish(ing) political speech.”
