Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits institutions that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, or national origin.” Over the past two decades, pro-Israel actors inside and outside the government have pushed for a reinterpretation of Title VI to include a broad notion of antisemitism that can be easily used to recast many criticisms of Israel as unlawful discrimination.— from Discriminating Against Dissent: The Weaponization of Civil Rights Law to Repress Campus Speech on Palestine

Anna Feder writing in Academe Blog: “When I began recording interviews with faculty who faced repercussions for their Palestine advocacy last spring, I recognized a pattern: administrators and external actors using Title VI to attack the core tenets of higher education. The AAUP and Middle East Studies Association (MESA) documented this trend in the November 2025 report: Discriminating Against Dissent. This was the first systematic empirical study of government investigations and private lawsuits against US colleges and universities under Title VI. The most significant finding of this report is that pro-Israel groups have ‘flooded school administrators and the federal government with claims of antisemitism, which have prompted a wave of investigations; in parallel, these organizations have filed numerous private lawsuits in federal court.'” Read more here.