in effect
This is a presidential executive order (Executive Order 14188, signed January 29, 2025), a directive from the President to federal agencies. It reaffirms an earlier 2019 order on combating anti-Semitism (Executive Order 13899) and orders agencies to take additional steps, framed as a response to campus incidents following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. It directs agencies to identify and report on the legal tools they can use against anti-Semitic harassment and violence.
Within 60 days, the head of every executive department and agency must send the President a report (routed through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy) listing all civil and criminal authorities—beyond those already used under the 2019 order—that could combat anti-Semitism, plus an inventory of pending administrative complaints against colleges and universities over campus anti-Semitism since October 7, 2023. The Attorney General’s report must additionally inventory relevant court cases and state whether the Justice Department will act (for example, by filing statements of interest or intervening), and the order encourages using civil-rights enforcement statutes such as 18 U.S.C. 241. The Secretary of Education must additionally cover Title VI civil-rights complaints, including in K-12 schools, handled by the Office for Civil Rights. The Secretaries of State, Education, and Homeland Security must recommend ways to familiarize universities with the immigration inadmissibility grounds in 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so schools can monitor and report relevant activities by non-citizen (“alien”) students and staff, potentially leading to investigations and removal. The order creates no new legal rights and is subject to available funding.
Federal agencies bear the direct workload, since each must produce reports and identify enforcement tools, with the Attorney General and the Secretaries of Education, State, and Homeland Security given extra tasks. Colleges, universities, and K-12 schools are affected because their handling of anti-Semitism complaints will be inventoried and potentially subject to civil-rights enforcement. Non-citizen students and staff are specifically named as subjects of monitoring and reporting that could lead to investigation or removal, while Jewish students are identified as the group the order aims to protect.