The University of Massachusetts Amherst was among 60 institutions of higher education that received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education on Monday warning of “potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.”
The letter, announced in a press release, comes as President Donald Trump targets universities with funding cuts over his perception of their actions during pro-Palestine protests last spring. The administration has threatened to deport foreign students involved in the pro-Palestine movement on their campuses, and on Saturday arrested a Columbia University student and legal permanent U.S. resident for his activism. That’s after Trump ordered a $400 million cut to Columbia’s federal funding over what he called pervasive antisemitism on campus.
UMass Amherst issued a statement on Tuesday acknowledging the Department of Education letter. Of the $260 million UMass Amherst receives yearly to fund its research portfolio, $180 million comes from federal sources, according to university spokesperson Emily Gest.
Student groups have announced plan to protest in front of the Whitmore Administration Building on Thursday at 4 p.m. to demand a campus free from the presence of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security, as well as “protection of pro-Palestinian protest.”
The Department of Education’s list of schools seems to have been compiled in response to a Trump executive order requiring the education secretary to create an inventory of all civil rights complaints “related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023 campus anti-Semitism.”
The order further directs the secretary of education to collaborate with the secretaries of state and homeland security to make recommendations to schools on how best to “monitor for and report activities” by immigrant students and staff to facilitate the investigation and “if warranted, actions to remove” those community members.
On March 12, Gest told The Shoestring that the school’s administration “is not aware of any inquiries from DHS re international students or faculty.”
The Shoestring could not reach a representative from the Department of Education for comment. A day after the list of schools was released, the department announced it would be terminating around half of its employees, and all of its offices were closed on Wednesday due to security concerns following the mass layoffs.
The Shoestring previously reported on Trump’s “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” executive order, as well as the existence of two Title VI complaints made against the school: one submitted on behalf of one student by the Anti-Defamation League and one filed by Palestine Legal on behalf of 18 students.
A statement from UMass references a third complaint filed by Zachary Marschall, editor in chief of the right-wing higher education-focused media outlet Campus Reform. Marschall, who has filed dozens of Title VI complaints alleging antisemitism by colleges and universities across the country, does not appear to have any direct ties to the school, or to have submitted his complaint on behalf of any student or faculty member.
UMass claims that it is only “aware of reports about” Marschall’s complaint, but not the complaint itself.
The Shoestring reviewed Marschall’s complaint and found that it primarily references blog posts, from his own website, about tweets posted by Fox News reporter and Mount Holyoke College alumna Kassy Dillon. In 2023, Dillon recorded a short video in which people can allegedly be heard shouting, “There is only one solution: Intifada Revolution,” which Marchsall describes as a “genocidal chant.”
The Shoestring relies on reader support to make independent news for western Massachusetts possible. You can support this kind of reporting by visiting our donate page.
In another video from Dillon, a woman can be seen asking for the reporter’s contact information “for legal reasons.” Marschall characterizes this encounter in his complaint as harassment towards the reporter for being Jewish.
Marsachall did not respond to an inquiry submitted through a form on his website.
Tensions have been running high throughout academia this week, largely due to the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian and permanent resident of the United States, who was involved with political demonstrations at Columbia University last year while he was a graduate student there.
On Wednesday, the Bluesky account for the Kulkarni Lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School posted a screenshot of an email sent by the dean of biomedical sciences at UMass Chan Medical School, Mary Ellen Lane, announcing that the biomedical school was rescinding all offers for admission for the fall 2025 term “due to ongoing uncertainties related to federal funding of biomedical research.”
UMASS IS RESCINDING ALL GRAD POSITIONS FOR THIS YEAR
— KLAB at Harvard Medical School (@klab.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T19:00:15.368Z
On Thursday, UMass Chan Medical School issued a statement about the rescinded admission offers, which it says affect several dozen students who would have pursued a PhD in biomedical sciences in the fall.
“With uncertainties related to the funding of biomedical research in this country, this difficult decision was made to ensure that our current students’ progress is not disrupted by the funding cuts and that we avoid matriculating students who may not have robust opportunities for dissertation research,” the statement said.
In a separate statement, school administrators also said targeted furloughs and layoffs are “going to be necessary,” according to reporting from WBUR. School officials sent a memo to employees on Tuesday about the expected cutbacks, citing the Trump administration’s plan to implement a cap on some federal research funding from the National Institutes of Health. As WBUR reported, UMass stands to lose $40 to $50 million a year if the cap is implemented.
An employee at Chan, who requested anonymity to discuss internal communications at the medical college, told The Shoestring that the rescinded offers are part of a larger reduction in force, and that notifications about the layoffs had already begun. “It’s very, very bad,” they said.
According to the employee, heads of labs have been told who is being cut and it is primarily medical school staff — positions such as postdoctoral researchers and lab technicians — whose salaries are paid from the school’s operating budget. Chan officials have stated that graduate students’ jobs will be unaffected.
“The absolute horror looming for all of us is Medicaid cuts,” the employee said. While UMass Chan Medical School and the UMass Memorial Medical Center are financially independent entities, some research is funded through the hospital.
If principal investigators can’t adequately staff their labs, it will be harder if not impossible for them to continue to research and obtain external grant funding, which they fear will also be cut.
“There’s just no way to recover from this because everything is in jeopardy,” the employee said.
Last week, the federal government announced it was canceling over $400 million in grants and contracts at Columbia University.
On Monday, the Department of Agriculture announced a freeze on $100 million in funding to the University of Maine system, citing unspecified concerns over alleged Title VI or Title IX violations. On Wednesday, that decision appears to have been reversed without explanation. That same day, news broke about a March 5 email from John Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels that the shuttering of USAID had caused the school to lose over $800 million in grants.
Jonathan Gerhardson is a journalist in western Massachusetts.
Email: jon.gerhardson@proton.me
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
- Jonathan Gerhardson
