cal poly is among campuses closely watching a new set of grades released this week as the Anti-Defamation League issued its third annual campus antisemitism “report cards. ” The scorecard tracks how universities have handled antisemitism, and ADL leadership says schools have improved significantly across the three-year period. The release lands in a moment when federal actions and campus policy responses are under sharp scrutiny, with some institutions seeing their grades rise while others remain stuck at the bottom.
What the ADL report cards say this week
The ADL said universities that reached settlements with the Trump administration last year to preserve federal funding mostly received higher marks in the newly released grades. Columbia, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia all saw their ADL grades boosted after striking deals that ended federal civil rights investigations, with some agreements tied to large payouts.
Shira Goodman, head of the ADL’s Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education, said policies may have changed what is happening on campuses and that could influence results. “I think some of those policies may have affected what’s happening on campus, and therefore that impacts the grades, ” Goodman said.
Goodman also said neither a university’s dealings with the government nor litigation from private organizations, including the ADL, affected a school’s grade. She said those actions, along with “Jewish communal pressure, ” can push schools to take concerns more seriously, and that some settlement terms match elements the ADL has been measuring and calling for since 2023.
Where grades rose, where they didn’t, and how schools reacted
The ADL said 89% of the universities it graded this year engaged with the organization during the assessment process, including by providing documentation about their handling of antisemitism. The ADL also said some schools are publicly highlighting stronger results.
At the University of California-Los Angeles, Chancellor Julio Frenk celebrated UCLA’s upgrade from a D to a B, stating: “Our efforts and actions to fight antisemitism are being seen. ” The ADL’s report also notes UCLA rose from D to B even as the Trump administration has pursued the school on multiple fronts.
Not every institution moved upward. Harvard University, which is engaged in protracted federal antisemitism litigation, saw its C grade remain unchanged. Cornell University earned its second C in a row despite agreeing to a $60 million payout to the administration.
The University of Pennsylvania’s grade rose from C to B, though the settlement referenced in the material involved transgender athletes rather than antisemitism. The same week as the report-card release, Penn argued in court against a federal demand to turn over a list of Jewish faculty and staff as part of an ongoing investigation.
In the broader distribution, the ADL handed out 23 “A” grades and four “F” grades. Additions to the “A” list include New York University, USC, Tulane, Johns Hopkins, and American University.
Immediate reactions and competing views of the grading system
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt framed the report cards as a driver of change and said the latest data shows measurable progress. “The data confirms what we’ve said from the start: maintaining a safe campus climate is a matter of will, ” Greenblatt said. He added that universities taking a “comprehensive approach” are seeing meaningful gains, especially when recommendations are translated into “lasting institutional practice, rather than symbolic commitments. ”
At the same time, Goodman said Jewish campus groups continue to have mixed reactions to the report cards. “Some of them think the report card makes their lives more difficult, makes their relationship with campuses more difficult, ” she said. “And for some, I think it helps them. We can be a little bit of the ‘bad cop. ’” The ADL’s project has also been criticized by several Jewish campus groups as oversimplified and unnuanced, even as the material indicates schools are taking the grades seriously.
In New York City, the New School maintained an “F” for the third consecutive year, with the ADL citing a “level of severe antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents” and “hostile anti-Zionist student groups. ” Bowdoin College received a “D, ” dropping from a “C” in 2025, with the ADL flagging what it called “hostile anti-Zionist groups. ” Other institutions listed with “F” grades include California State University, Los Angeles; Evergreen State College; and Scripps College.
Quick context and what’s next
This week’s release is the third year the ADL has issued campus antisemitism report cards and the first that reflects the Trump administration’s campus antisemitism policies—praised by some Jewish groups and criticized by others as a pretext to crack down on academic freedom. The ADL says overall improvement has been significant across the three-year tracking period.
Next steps will likely center on how universities respond to the new grades and whether campus policy shifts continue as federal investigations and legal fights play out. For cal poly students tracking the national picture, the immediate signal from the ADL is that engagement, documentation, and enforcement are now central to how campus climate will be judged in the next cycle.
