NEW YORK CITY — Columbia University reached a settlement with the Trump administration that established a $21 million fund to compensate Jewish employees who experienced an allegedly hostile work environment linked to campus protests following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and during Israel’s war in Gaza. The agreement, which also included a $200 million fine and mandated policy changes, resolved claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The window to file claims for the compensation fund closed this week. The EEOC described the settlement as the largest public resolution in nearly two decades under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In its notice to potentially eligible employees, the agency stated that Columbia had engaged in unlawful employment practices by subjecting staff to harassment based on “their religion (Jewish), race (Jewish) and/or national origin (Israeli).”

Several Jewish faculty members filed claims alleging harassment stemming from their support for Palestinian rights or their roles during student demonstrations. Claimants reported being doxed, followed, spat on, screamed at in meetings, accused of professional misconduct, investigated by the university, targeted online and by phone, and receiving death threats. Some said Columbia failed to protect them and in certain instances exacerbated the hostile climate.

Classics professor Joseph Howley wrote in his EEOC claim: “I no longer consider Columbia University a safe place to work for Jews who dare to dissent from the political agenda of its most ardently pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian donors and trustees.” He added: “We spoke as Jews about the University and how we thought it should protect its interests; we were attacked as Jews, or as bad Jews, or as fake Jews, by people who carried the University’s authority or knew they had its implicit support.” Howley also stated: “This singling Jews out for special treatment is dangerous and encourages antisemitism.”

Marianne Hirsch, a scholar of antisemitism and daughter of Holocaust survivors, wrote: “My Jewishness demands that I honor my ancestors and the only way I know to do that is to oppose war, violence and injustice and fight for ‘never again for anyone.’” She also stated: “When the only acceptable way to be Jewish is to support Israel unconditionally, there is no longer a way for me to be Jewish on Columbia’s campus.”

EY Zipris, an adjunct professor at Columbia’s Teachers College, wrote that her ultra-Orthodox Jewish parents opposed Zionism on religious grounds. “Had my profoundly observant parents voiced those same perspectives on Columbia’s campus today they would have been called antisemitic and pilloried for their beliefs, just as I have been for mine,” she wrote. Zipris also said she was “on numerous occasions insulted, belittled, and verbally attacked for standing publicly and unapologetically as a Jewish American, often while holding signs in both Hebrew and English calling for the safety of students and colleagues.” Columbia University did not respond to a request for comment.