The DOJ Confirmed Why I’m Suing George Washington University
This article originally appeared https://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/the-doj-confirmed-why-im-suing-george-washington-university/
By Sabrina Soffer
The U.S. Department of Justice recently confirmed that George Washington University was “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitism. I arrived at GW never imagining that the promise of its namesake would be violated: “To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” But it was. This May, I graduated from GW disheartened — and as one of five plaintiffs suing the university due to pervasive and persistent antisemitism.
Throughout college, I consistently notified administrators about antisemitism and was met with neglect. Long before Oct. 7, GW’s Jewish community endured hostility masked as political discourse. After Hamas’ massacre, hostility hardened into overt cruelty.
As a freshman and sophomore, I was branded a “racist” and “extremist.” Protestors once confronted me with a large Palestinian flag, accusing me of being “responsible for the suffering of all Palestinian people.” They quipped they would not “have coffee with an oppressor,” insisting that my Jewish family could not experience oppression because I didn’t have “color on [my] skin.” Back then, I didn’t fully understand the animus but was already feeling its effects.
These incidents weren’t isolated. A professor distorted Holocaust history. A Torah scroll was desecrated. Mezuzahs were ripped from doorframes. Posters reading “Zionists F— Off” and “Settlers F— Off” defaced campus property. Jewish students were spat on or called “kikes.” Some have been excluded from student organizations. Those who reported these abuses were often swallowed in GW’s bureaucracy. Some were even retaliated against.
Many students confided in me, and I became a conduit for their experiences. I documented their accounts and discussed some of them with university leadership. I heard that some students, disillusioned and unsupported, have transferred. A handful of others are afraid to come forward.
Raising awareness about these incidents branded me the “most hated Jew on campus.” In 2022, members of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace reportedly planned to hurl beer bottles at a venue where I was speaking alongside Israel’s then ambassador. Thankfully, they were diverted. I spent the next several weeks afraid to walk alone. Speaking up came at a cost.
I initially enrolled in GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs and was drawn to the Institute for Middle East Studies. As I became more immersed, I noticed that IMES programming was skewed with anti-Israel bigotry.
Between 2021 and 2025, IMES hosted webinars suggesting that Israeli identity was rooted in settler-colonial violence. In December 2023, GW’s medical school imported IMES faculty to a panel that declared Hamas terrorists have a “right of resistance” against Israel. In April 2024, I listened to an IMES symposium where academics spewed tropes of dual loyalty and delegitimized Jewish connection to Israel. Dissenting viewpoints were absent. Upon expressing concerns to the director of IMES, she denied and dismissed me.
Professors fueling antisemitism faced no pushback. Meanwhile, those inviting open debate on other topics were punished. One of my freshman-year professors was publicly shamed and disciplined for questioning whether it was OK to read the N-word aloud in primary sources during class discussions. Another professor who asked the same question and did not even utter the word was forced to leave the university.
Seeking free inquiry, I pivoted to major in Philosophy. I added Judaic Studies, wanting to understand Israel’s history and its demonization. Still drawn to Middle East policy, I attended IMES events, where the claims ‘Zionism is racism’ and ‘Israel is a colonial project’ abounded without alternative, less hateful views. Those narratives echoed at protests, a pattern of no accident. At the encampment, a GW professor declared, “Students enact what we teach.” This ideological machinery plagued American Studies, Psychology and more. “I came to college a moderate, and I’m so proud to have been radicalized,” a philosophy student said emphatically, beaming at our professor.
Addressing antisemitism became urgent. In my sophomore year, the student government appointed me to lead a task force to combat antisemitism. That momentum was short-lived. Just months before Oct. 7, 2023, GW’s incoming student president abruptly dissolved the charge. I repeatedly appealed to administrators, proposing a new version. Nothing ever came of it.
Post-Oct. 7, I regularly met with students, published op-eds and engaged with leadership. One central request should not have been controversial: introduce greater diversity of perspective, especially in IMES programming. Students and I provided a list of speakers. Our requests were ignored. We, seeking balance, were left to host our own events, unsupported by the institution claiming to uphold diversity and inclusion.
In the week following Oct. 7, my professor canceled class for an IMES panel, “Understanding the Conflict in Israel and Palestine.” When I asked about the stated goals of the Hamas Charter, one panelist compared the charter to Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Days later, IMES screened “Israelism,” followed by a panel, incentivized with extra credit. The film’s producer humiliated me instead of answering my questions.
When the encampment overtook campus, one of my professors sympathized with the protestors. Days later, I was surrounded by a mob alongside a friend. The DOJ letter to GW notes that a Jewish student “surrounded, harassed, threatened, and then ordered to leave the area immediately by antisemitic protesters” was told by GW administrators to leave because his presence was “antagonizing and provoking the crowd.” A Jewish student across the street from the encampment, holding an Israeli flag, was harassed and then told to leave the area by a GW Police Department officer.
Last summer, GW convened six faculty-led working groups to address campus climate. Despite the flare of antisemitism, they included a group on “Humanitarian Aid in Gaza and Beyond” and not even one concerning Israel or Jewish life.
Though the wave of anti-Israel protests has receded, the appearance of calm is deceptive. The demonstrations achieved their purpose, raising the bar of what is considered acceptable. As the noise fades, hostility persists, normalized by leaders entrusted to enforce GW’s standards. In March 2025, a Jewish American guest lecturer was shouted down during class. Rather than defend academic freedom, the professor apologized to the class for having invited the lecturer. Just before graduation, the political science department honored a self-described anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist student pictured with a keffiyeh. Responding to community members, GW removed all student awardee bios from its website. The award itself remained.
I came to GW expecting commitment to intellectual honesty, free inquiry and equal treatment. What I found instead was ideological conformity, censorship, double standards and a crisis of accountability. The university had ample opportunities and resources to change course. It chose not to. Their deliberate indifference now carries the consequences.
Sabrina Soffer is a recent graduate of George Washington University.