Gov. Josh Green said White House officials reassured him Tuesday that the University of Hawaii “is not on the chopping block for antisemitism” just one day after the Trump administration warned UH and several dozen other colleges that they are under investigation for alleged civil rights violations.
“I was on the phone with the White House at about 4:30 a.m. today regarding UH funding,” Green, who is Jewish, wrote in a text to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “I spoke with high-level administration officials including the Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House and the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. I explained that while there was a little on-campus conflict during the recent war in Gaza it paled in comparison to what’s gone on at other universities. We are not an institution that is antisemitic. We’re giving them a letter to fortify our position, but they assured me the University of Hawai‘i is not on the chopping block for antisemitism.”
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Monday sent shock waves throughout the 10-campus UH system with a notice that it was one of 60 institutions of higher education across the country that faced “potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities.”
UH never received a complaint alleging antisemitism amid campus protests at universities across the country that pitted pro-Palestinian supporters against pro-Israeli groups following the bloody 2023 invasion of Israel by a Hamas militant group.
UH doctoral candidate Mason Russo, who served as director of Hillel Hawaii, a campus group for Jewish students, told the Star-Advertiser by email in 2024 that he and other, unnamed students had filed a federal Title VI complaint “as a result of the constant antisemitism and anti-Israel incidents on campus that cross the line of free speech.”
Their Jan. 17, 2024, complaint was filed with the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act protects all students from discrimination based on race, color or national origin in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance from the federal agency.
The complaint accused some UH faculty and students of praising attacks on the people of Israel and that the expressions were made in classrooms, at faculty meetings and public rallies, and online.
The Office for Civil Rights in March 2024 then notified UH that it was opening an investigation about the complaint and requested data, which UH said it provided the following April and May.
In September then-UH President David Lassner told the UH Board of Regents: “We have supporters of both Palestine and Israel urging actions often in opposite directions. And like numerous universities across the country — and this was publicly disclosed — we have received notice of a Title VI investigation initiated by the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. … These investigations have arisen from complaints primarily about antisemitism on U.S. campuses around the country.
“I do appreciate all of those who call on university leadership to issue statements and take actions in support of their positions on the conflict, who want their university to stand up for what they believe,” Lassner told the board. “I have shared consistently for the past year, and I know frustratingly to many, my priority is our collective safety, health, well being and creating opportunities for learning within our university.”
In the aftermath of university protests nationwide, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University in New York City following allegations of harassment of Jewish students.
UH received $370 million in its latest round of federal funding for a long list of research projects, positions and programs including Native Hawaiian education, said Vassilis Syrmos, UH’s vice president for research and innovation.
The Trump administration’s elimination of any project or program that includes diversity, equality and inclusion — and its more recent plan to purge the federal DOE beginning today — has even broader implications for UH beyond the investigation into alleged antisemitism, Syrmos said.
It will take weeks to figure out which of 1,300 positions within the federal agency are being eliminated and the effects on specific UH programs that could jeopardize “tens of millions of dollars” for local university system, Syrmos said.
The fallout could wipe out 1,200 UH jobs along with community college technical training programs, and various research projects and programs, including those aimed at Hawaiian studies and training future Hawaiian teachers, he said.
“We don’t know which programs (at the U.S. DOE) will be affected so, therefore, we cannot assess the situation extremely well,” Syrmos said. “But it goes without saying that certain programs involving UH will be either downsized or terminated. We just don’t know which ones.”
Potential cuts in federal funding and programs for UH also could hurt Hawaii public high school students if its “Gear Up” program to help the state Department of Education provide counseling for its students to pursue higher education also gets cut, according to Syrmos.
“These are some of the larger ones that we have that might be affected, but there’s a whole list of smaller ones that also may be affected,” he said.
Syrmos particularly worries about the possibility of federal cuts to UH programs aimed at ethnic minorities, especially Native Hawaiians.
“That is going to be very unfortunate,” he said. “We hope the Trump administration will exclude our Native Hawaiian programs that they’re targeting for downsizing or elimination.”
In February, Green flew to Washington, D.C., where he attended the National Governors Association winter meeting and met face to face with Trump and members of his administration to lobby for support for Hawaii.
The governor told the Star-Advertiser that unlike governors from other deep blue states, he took a more conciliatory approach in reaching out to administration officials if it meant preserving federal resources for Hawaii.
It remains to be seen whether Green’s early morning outreach Tuesday to the White House will resolve the Office for Civil Rights investigation into allegations of antisemitism on UH campuses.
