Month: August 2025

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that George Washington University was in violation of federal civil rights laws by “acting deliberately indifferent” to instances of anti-Semitism on campus.

In a letter from Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division Harmeet K. Dhillon to GWU President Ellen M. Granberg, the DOJ stated that the department had finished its probe of the allegations against the university and found that GWU’s response to incidents of anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment of Jewish and Israeli students that “despite actual notice of the abuses occurring on its campus, GWU was deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred, and the harms that were suffered by its students and faculty, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 .. The antisemitic, hate-based misconduct by GWU students directed at Jewish GWU students, faculty, and employees was, in a word, shocking. The behavior was demonstrably abhorrent, immoral, and, most importantly, illegal.”

The allegations stem from an encampment that students created in GWU’s University Yard, in the middle of campus: “The purpose of the agitators’ efforts was to frighten, intimidate, and deny Jewish, Israeli, and American-Israeli students free and unfettered access to GWU’s educational environment. This is the definition of hostility and a ‘hostile environment.’ [DOJ’s] investigation found numerous incidents of Jewish students being harassed, abused, intimidated and assaulted by protesters. To be clear, Jewish students were afraid to attend class, to be observed, or, worse, to be ‘caught’ and perhaps physically beaten on GWU’s campus.”  The letter offered “the opportunity to resolve this matter through a voluntary resolution agreement.”

The letter refers to campus protests in April and May 2024, where students staged pro-Palestinian protests at universities across the country, including rallies and encampments; however, some Jewish students experienced alleged anti-Semitism on several university campuses.

GWU spokesperson Shannon McClendon said in a statement: “GW condemns antisemitism, which has absolutely no place on our campuses or in a civil and humane society. Moreover, our actions clearly demonstrate our commitment to addressing antisemitic actions and promoting an inclusive campus environment by upholding a safe, respectful, and accountable environment. “

GWU is one of dozens of American universities that have been targeted by the Trump administration with civil rights and constitutional investigations in connection to protests over Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump has been cracking down on institutions of higher learning over a slew of allegations, from not protecting Jewish students to illegally enforcing diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

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E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), has proposed pausing the release of monthly employment reports in favor of more reliable quarterly updates.

In an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday (ahead of his nomination) that was published Tuesday, Antoni argued that the BLS’s current approach to tracking U.S. job numbers is flawed and often misleading, and suggested it be replaced with “more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data.”  Antoni said: “How on earth are businesses supposed to plan — or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy — when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy? It’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately. Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data.”

Antoni – currently the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation – believes the monthly reports should be replaced temporarily with quarterly reports that offer greater accuracy. This change, he said, should remain in place until the BLS overhauls its data collection methods to produce dependable monthly figures: “From Wall Street investors to policymakers in Washington, key decisions hinge on these numbers,” Antoni noted. “If people lose confidence in the data, the consequences can ripple across the economy.”

Trump announced Antoni’s nomination just days after firing former BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on August 1. That decision came after the agency reported that 73,000 jobs were created in July—less than half the 147,000 initially reported for June. Trump accused McEntarfer of deliberately inflating job reports before the upcoming November 5 election to benefit the Biden administration. According to Trump, later adjustments erased a total of 818,000 jobs from the record. McEntarfer had been nominated to the BLS post by President Joe Biden in July 2023 and was confirmed by the Senate in January 2024.

Trump praised Antoni, writing Monday on Truth Social: “I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Highly Respected Economist, Dr. E.J. Antoni, as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE. I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!”

Asked whether the BLS would continue to release monthly jobs reports, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope, and that these monthly reports will be data that the American people can trust. We need to restore new leadership that we trust” at the BLS, adding that “we need to look at the means and the methods of how the United States is acquiring this very important data. The goal, of course, is to provide honest and good data for the American people to make very important economic decisions on.”

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