by Madeleine Farr | Special to the Courier

Scripps College President Amy Marcus-Newhall informed the college community last week that the school received a formal notice of investigation from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on March 14; OCR said the investigation stems from a complaint alleging antisemitism filed against Scripps last month.

Marcus-Newhall noted that the investigation alone does not constitute the finding of a violation nor a lawsuit.

“Scripps College has been and continues to be committed to providing an inclusive campus environment for all students, faculty, and staff and to abiding by all applicable laws,” she wrote. “The College will be cooperating in the investigation process and welcomes the opportunity to respond.”

A February 24 Title VI complaint by the Louis D. Brandeis Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and the law firm Arnold & Porter provoked the OCR’s investigation. The complaint alleged the college “abandoned Jewish and Israeli students” and committed other civil rights violations regarding antisemitic harassment and discrimination.

The OCR formally opened its investigation on March 18.

The Brandeis Center and the ADL sued Scripps’ sister school Pomona College in May 2024 over similar allegations. On March 7, Pomona was among 60 schools to receive warnings from the OCR regarding antisemitic discrimination. All such warnings, letters, and notices threaten that findings of antisemitism will result in rescinded federal funding.

Scripps sophomore Naya Dermenjian said Marcus-Newhall’s email didn’t come as a surprise, given students were already discussing the investigation online and in person.

“I do think the [OCR] investigation is grounded, and it’s a valid investigation,” Dermenjian said, noting her concern regarding some reported antisemitic incidents.

Some examples of antisemitic discrimination included in the February 24 complaint included a student being told to remove her Star of David necklace, employees at Scripps’ Motley Coffeehouse accused of refusing to hire a Zionist, and antisemitic tropes in the college’s student newspaper, the Scripps Voice.

Dermenjian also said she did not trust Trump.

“His actively trying to dismantle the DoE doesn’t give him a whole lot of credibility for this,” she said. “I hope the people actually in charge are more competent than him.”

Sally Gaskell, also a Scripps sophomore, said she expected Scripps to be investigated by Trump. However, she also said she only read Marcus-Newhall’s email once her friends highlighted its importance due to the many emails she receives from Scripps administration regularly.

“When Scripps sends me emails, I never really take it at face value,” Gaskell said. “I always feel like there’s something more going on that they’re not really sharing with us. They’re so media-trained that it’s just all so performative.”

Like Dermenjian, Gaskell said that the OCR investigation was warranted but expressed concern over Trump’s administration carrying it out.

“I think the issue is that both sides aren’t being investigated equally,” Gaskell said. “I find [the Trump administration] to be so untrustworthy. There’s an ulterior motive that isn’t protecting students, and the findings would not be credible.”

Ezra Levinson, a Pitzer College sophomore and organizer at Jewish Voice for Peace, said in a statement that integral aspects of a 5C education — “the learning, organizing, dissent, research, activism, and community we engage in here” — would certainly cause Trump to attack Scripps, Pomona, and perhaps other Claremont universities.

“Instead of playing into the hands of the Trump administration by caving to weaponized claims of antisemitism and other excuses for repression, our colleges can and should be outspokenly resisting fascism, and uplifting and protecting the marginalized members of our community,” Levinson said.

Pitzer College art and gender studies professor Sarah Gilbert wrote in an email that, as a Jewish faculty member, the Trump administration’s attacks on marginalized groups contribute to feelings of unsafety, adding increasing antisemitism on college campuses is “because of — not in spite of —  recent attempts to equate any and all criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.”

“A threat to any of us is a threat to all of us,” Gilbert wrote. “5C students largely understand this, which is why so many of those arrested in the anti-genocide protests last year were students of color, Jews, and/or first-generation college students.”

Scripps College’s communications office responded to a request for comment with a copy of Marcus-Newhall’s original March 19 email. Pomona Executive Assistant to the President Stephanie Navarro emailed the following in response to a request for comment: “On behalf of Acting President Bob Gaines I’m responding to let you know the College strongly upholds every student’s right to protest, as established in the Claremont Colleges Demonstration Policy.”

Madeleine Farr is a Pitzer College sophomore studying politics and writing and rhetoric. She is chief copy editor at the Claremont Colleges student newspaper The Student Life, and hopes to pursue journalism after graduation.