President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at fighting antisemitism on campus, after 18 months in which Americans were shocked by the radicalism and hatred that exploded at the nation’s elite universities.
Antisemitism, emerging alongside anti-Israel radicalism, had long been a simmering problem on college campuses, but burst into the open after the Hamas terror attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which excited anti-Israel activists.
The order requires all executive agencies to identify ongoing actions against antisemitism, as well as actions that can be taken, within 60 days. In addition, it directs certain agencies to push colleges and universities to monitor activities of “alien students and staff” who are involved in antisemitic protests, so that they can be investigated and deported.”
The order follows up on Trump’s executive order during his first term extending civil rights protections to Jewish students. The new order notes that President Joe Biden effectively reversed that order by failing to enforce it. (The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division was silent throughout the spate of antisemitism from 2023 to present.)
Civil libertarian and prominent Jewish voice Alan Dershowitz, who helped Trump draft his first executive order, told Newsmax that the new order would have a “big impact,” adding: “I’m glad that the president and the administration is taking action against non-American citizens who are not entitled to be in this country. They’re here as our guests, essentially with student visas, and they’re abusing it because so many of these anti-Israel demonstrations are, at their core, anti-American demonstrations.”
Democrats and the media have long smeared Trump as an antisemite.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
