Jerry Gao, Contributing Photographer

On March 19, the Department of Education opened a new investigation into antisemitism at Yale, stemming from a discrimination complaint filed a year ago in April 2024 by the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League. 

The Title VI Shared Ancestry complaint alleges that two named undergraduates — Sahar Tartak ’26 and Netanel Crispe ’25 — and four anonymous students faced anti-Jewish discrimination across eight separate instances. 

Deena Margolies, a Brandeis Center attorney who filed the complaint, said that she and her colleagues pursued it after they decided Yale has allowed a “hostile environment” for Jewish students under the Title VI definition of harassment.

“Sometimes we have found that Jewish students are excluded from joining clubs, or they’re told they’re not wanted, or they’re told, We won’t take Zionists, which is often a code word for Jew,” she said. “And we found that a lot of these kinds of incidents were happening at Yale.”

The eight instances the complaint includes range from administrators allegedly applying University policies unevenly to the students receiving threatening messages on social media.

For example, both students said that they received harassment on social media after they were barred from attending a “Gaza under siege” event. The students claimed they were excluded because of their Jewish identities, while Yale released a statement asserting that some students had been barred because of pre-registration and space constraints.

The complaint states that Jewish students “including Ms. Tartak, Mr. Crispe, and others” avoided Sterling Memorial Library and the Law School Library during finals season because of “study-in” protests staged there. It also mentions an instance where protesters dropped fake one-hundred-dollar bills with bloodstain images onto students eating lunch.

Before the Department opened this investigation, it was already examining Yale under the Biden administration, following a Dec. 5, 2023 complaint filed by the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies, or DFI. That complaint focused on the “Gaza under siege” event, which was also detailed in the new complaint. 

The original DFI complaint is the reason Yale was included on a list of 60 universities that received a letter from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, warning of “potential enforcement actions” if the schools did not do more to combat antisemitism on campus. 

The second investigation into Yale, from the Brandeis Center and the ADL, was opened nine days after the Department sent that letter. Yale is not currently under a Title VI Shared Ancestry investigation for anything that happened linked to last spring’s pro-Palestinian encampments; the complaints were both filed before they took place.

A week after the OCR opened the Brandeis Center/ADL investigation, the Department of Education slashed the office in half, firing at least 240 of its employees. President Donald Trump then signed an executive order on March 20 to begin dismantling the Department entirely. Both moves have been challenged by lawsuits.

Margolies said the Brandeis Center verifies testimony it receives by asking for documentation such as witness corroboration, videos, emails, recordings and photographs. She emphasized that the Brandeis Center only files complaints based on conduct, not speech, and supports First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

The Yale spokesperson wrote to the News in response to an inquiry about the investigation that “Yale condemns antisemitism. It has no place in our community. We strive to ensure our Jewish community, along with all communities at Yale, are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, and we aim to create a safe, supportive learning environment for every student on our campus.”

She continued, “we have a track record of taking antisemitism seriously and will cooperate fully with this investigation of a complaint we understand was filed with OCR in April 2024. The university has taken a number of steps since then to address concerns of antisemitism.”

Margolies said that she has heard from “a heavy volume of students” from Yale compared with students from other schools against which she has filed similar OCR complaints. She added that other students and professors from Yale have contacted her since the April 2024 filing about facing antisemitism at the University, but she said the Brandeis Center does not currently have plans to file further complaints.

The Trump administration revoked $400 million in funding the Columbia University due to alleged harassment of Jewish students there, requiring that the school acquiesce to nine demands for the funding to be restored. Columbia agreed to make most of the changes demanded. 

In anticipation of possible funding cuts from the Trump administration, Yale said its 2026 fiscal year budget will reduce spending on faculty raises, faculty and staff hiring, campus construction and general non-salary expenditures.

On the ADL’s 2025 Campus Antisemitism Report Card, the organization gave Yale a ‘D’ grade.