Last November, students at Teaneck High School in New Jersey organized a walkout and teach-in in support of a cease-fire in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, which has now killed more than thirty-eight thousand Palestinians, including at least fifteen thousand children. The students’ actions were immediately met with criticism from politicians at both the municipal and federal levels, with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) urging the US Department of Education (DOE) to open an investigation into alleged antisemitism in the school district. On January 5, DOE opened a so-called Title VI investigation into alleged “discrimination involving shared ancestry” at Teaneck public schools.

DOE has opened at least forty Title VI investigations into elementary and secondary schools across the United States since October 7. In a November 2023 press release, the department described these investigations as covering both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents, but also suggested that the former outnumbered the latter more than two to one. Critics of the war on Gaza fear that such investigations threaten to have a chilling effect on dissent at schools nationwide.

For years, defenders of Israel have accused its critics of being antisemites — a notion that the DOE has also entertained. Since at least 2018, the department has been considering adopting a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel, according to the New York Times. Although that endorsement has never come to pass, such a definition has been used by DOE to challenge organizing in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which advocates economic opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, at higher-ed institutions like Rutgers University, in New Jersey.