US opens probe into MIT, UC Davis amid campus extremism

MIT President Sally Kornbluth, who is Jewish, was the only one of the three college presidents testifying whose university was not currently under investigation by the Department of Education. 

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

The US Department of Education is opening an investigation into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of California Davis amid increased campus turmoil during the war between Israel and Hamas.

These are two of the six institutions the Department of Education has begun investigating on allegations of harassment and mistreatment due to “shared ancestry.”

However, the Department of Education didn’t disclose details on specific incidents it was investigating, nor did the institutions publicize comments about the ongoing probe.

Given the fact that these types of investigations have expedited in recent weeks, coinciding with the rise of antisemitism and extremism on campus, it’s likely that a number of the investigations are related to anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents.

These investigations also come after the congressional hearing into antisemitism on campuses during which three university presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard, Elizabeth Magill of Penn, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT evaded questions and refused to say that encouraging the genocide of Jews violated their institution’s harassment codes.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth, who is Jewish, was the only one of the three college presidents testifying whose university was not currently under investigation by the Department of Education.

Although the specific incidents under investigation at UC Davis haven’t been publicized, the university made the news over antisemitic social media posts by a professor.

On October 10th, just days after the Hamas massacre that left 1,200 in Israel dead and 240 taken hostage,  professor Jenna Decristo threatened “Zionist journalists” and posted, “One group of ppl we have easy access to in the US is all these zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation.”

She continued, “They have houses w/addresses, kids in school[.] They can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.”

The post was accompanied by emojis that showed a knife and dripping blood.

Although a UC Davis spokesperson did not comment about whether Decristo was still employed at the university, they said that her page was removed from the faculty page of the institution’s website.