The Trump administration launched an antisemitism overview into the University of Washington, swooping in a day after anti-Israel activists occupied and vandalized a campus constructing in a fiery protest that brought about greater than $1 million in injury.
The Task Force to Fight Anti-Semitism condemned Tuesday the “eruption of anti-Semitic harassment and violence that occurred Monday, Might 5, at UW’s campus in Seattle,” which noticed about 75 protesters take over the Interdisciplinary Engineering Constructing.
The protest organized by College students United for Palestinian Fairness and Return, which was suspended by the college final 12 months, referred to as for the university to divest from Boeing over its protection contracts with the Israeli Protection Forces.
“Professional-terror protestors demanded that the university divest from Boeing as a result of firm’s army contracts linked to the Gaza battle,” stated the task force. “The ‘protestors’ actions included barricading and occupying an engineering constructing on campus for hours, setting property on hearth, and shouting loss of life threats to regulation enforcement.”
Police arrested 32 black-clad protesters, not all of whom had been college students. The activists additionally smashed home windows, barricaded entrances with furnishings, and broken precious manufacturing gear on the new constructing, in line with KOMO-TV in Seattle.
NEW: University of Washington says there was greater than $1 million value of injury finished to Interdisciplinary Engineering Constructing by violent protesters.
32 Arrests.
Extra on @komonews pic.twitter.com/C9QboEuelt
— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels_TV) May 6, 2025
UW President Ana Mari Cauce strongly condemned the “horrific and harmful conduct” in a group e-mail, however the administration stated that extra must be finished.
“The Task Force to Fight Anti-Semitism appreciates the university’s sturdy assertion condemning final evening’s violence and applauds the fast motion by regulation enforcement officers to take away violent criminals from the college campus,” stated the administration assertion.
‘Whereas these are good first steps, the university should do extra to discourage future violence and assure that Jewish college students have a protected and productive studying atmosphere,” stated the assertion. “The Task Force expects the establishment to observe up with enforcement actions and coverage modifications which might be clearly essential to forestall these uprisings transferring ahead.”
Additionally issuing statements had been Training Secretary Linda McMahon, Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the Common Companies Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum.
“The Task Force is not going to enable these so-called ‘protesters’ to disrupt campus life and deprive college students, particularly Jewish college students who stay in worry on campus, of their equal alternative protections and civil rights,” stated Ms. McMahon.
Ms. Cauce was emphatic in her denunciation of the harmful protest. The constructing focused by activists was constructed with a $10 million donation from Boeing.
“This was no peaceable protest in help of Palestinian rights or towards the struggle in Gaza,” Ms. Cauce stated in her e-mail. “I condemn this harmful, violent and unlawful constructing occupation and associated vandalism.”
As well as, “I additionally condemn within the strongest phrases the group’s assertion celebrating the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist assaults towards Israeli civilians,” she stated. “The University is not going to be intimidated by this type of horrific and harmful conduct and won’t have interaction in dialogue with any group utilizing or condoning such harmful ways.”
The professional-Palestinian pupil group denounced Ms. Cauce’s “legacy of denying genocide and repression of pro-Palestinian activism” in an April 24 submit on Instagram.
The Trump administration has additionally undertaken investigations into allegations of antisemitism at Columbia, Harvard, and the Harvard Regulation Evaluation.
