Why Is the Justice Department Refusing to Prosecute Campus Antisemites?

Where is the Department of Justice?

Jewish students are being attacked on college campuses across the nation. Borrowing a play from the Brownshirts of old, campus thugs are hunting out “Zionists” heading to class and assaulting them.

Where is the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division?

At UCLA, campus Brownshirts set up checkpoints. “Are you a Zionist?” they asked students. 

The password was “no."

Perhaps the Civil Rights Division blocks trial attorneys' access to the Los Angeles Times, where the story appeared.  

Has the FBI paid a visit to campus to identify the Brownshirts manning the Zionist checkpoint? Has the special agent in charge asked for the CCTV files? Anything?

The UCLA Jew checkpoints happened last spring. Seven months ago. Nothing from DOJ.

Perhaps the lawyers at the Civil Rights Division are unfamiliar with 18 U.S.C. 245.  That law makes it a federal crime to interfere or intimidate those exercising federally protected activities, like walking down the street free from racially motivated threats.

I’m kidding, of course. We know the lawyers at the Civil Rights Division know 18 U.S.C. 245 and other civil rights laws because they use them so frequently against police officers and prison guards.

But checkpoints for Jews would seem to be an easy one. Where are the attorneys in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, such as Section Chief Jim Felte?

UCLA isn’t alone. Campus threats against Jewish students are the popular new pastime on campus. George Washington University, Haverford College, University of Michigan, Middlebury College, Northwestern, SUNY Purchase, Swarthmore, University of California Berkley and Davis, and NYU are some of the hottest destinations for campus bigots. More on these ten schools in a moment.

There have been physical attacks on Jewish students across the United States since October 7, 2023. One Jewish student at the University of California Berkeley was punched in the face for exercising First Amendment rights to video record an anti-Israel encampment.

Last week, masked men attacked Jewish students at DePaul in Chicago while the victims were exercising First Amendment free speech rights supporting Israel. For the lawyers at DOJ, that’s a “federally protected civil right.” Go find 18 U.S.C. 241. The law even mentions those who “go in disguise.” 

Paging Chief Felte. You can do it. This isn’t hard.

Unless you don’t want to do it. Perhaps Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke isn’t a big fan of protecting Jewish students. No surprise there. Clarke has a history of defending notorious antisemites like the New Black Panthers after they misbehaved at a poll in 2008.

To be fair, in the thirteen months since campus monsters have been attacking Jewish students, there has been one single Department of Justice prosecution of the perpetrators. Patrick Dai, a Cornell student, received a whopping 21 months in prison for threatening to conduct mass murder on campus.

One prosecution.

For good reason. Mr. Dai posted he was “gonna shoot up 104 west,” a dining hall at Cornell University that caters predominantly to Kosher diets and is next to the Cornell Jewish Center that provides residential accommodations for students. Dai also promised to “bomb the jewish house.” Borrowing a method of murder from other monsters, Dai threatened to “stab” and “slit the throat” of any Jew he saw on campus. For good measure, he threatened to behead any Jewish babies. Perhaps realizing the tactical limits of knives, Dai threatened to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.”

Let’s return to those ten schools I mentioned. I am a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. President Trump appointed me in 2020. I don’t speak for the Commission, but I wanted answers. I asked these ten schools for basic information about the antisemitic incidents on their campuses.

I wanted the lists of incidents, which must be maintained under federal law.

I wanted the list of disciplinary actions against the antisemitic perpetrators.

I wanted any documents showing a plan or policy to combat threatening antisemitism on campus.

None of these ten universities – GWU, Middlebury, Michigan, etc. — provided a scrap of the information sought. Not one scrap. They are hiding the truth.

See a pattern here? No interest at the Department of Justice. No transparency from university leadership.

Thankfully, private groups are on the job even if the Department of Justice is not.

Stand With Us is shining the light on the campus anti-Semites. They “empower and energize students and communities with leadership training and educational programs on hundreds of college campuses.” In other words, they fight back. Things have gotten so bad that even the reliably progressive Anti-Defamation League has gotten involved.

The rise of open, culturally accepted antisemitism, at least in some progressive subcultures, is a threat to civil rights with a worldwide pedigree. We know where this story can end. It is critical for the institutions here to prevent this wickedness from gaining momentum, step up, and do their jobs.