The Academic Engagement Network influences institutes of higher education through an array of strategic programs, campaign partnerships, and national networks. The organization functions in two broad capacities. First, as educational policy consultants who train campus staff to challenge IHRA-defined antisemitism. Second, as a quasi-academic think tank replete with a self-published research paper and pamphlet series focused on challenging the academic boycott of Israel, and policy memos co-sponsored by Hillel and the ADL.
National Networks
AEN influence has grown considerably in recent years—AEN faculty members are present across at least 320 U.S and Canadian campuses and the organization has worked with over 3,000 university and college administrators since 2020. The AEN also runs two “nationwide networks” targeting academic and administrative staff respectively: Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement (FAAM) and a private network of university administrators. Click on the images below to learn more.
Strategic Funded Programs
In partnership with Hillel International, the AEN operates an Improving the Campus Climate Initiative (ICCI) whereby Hillel students are connected directly with AEN faculty members on their campuses. A component of ICCI is the Antisemitism Education Initiative, through which the AEN has funded UC Berkeley’s Antisemitism Education Initiative since 2020. AEN gave multi-year $25,000 renewable grants to CUNY, Yale, University of Minnesota, and Evergeen State College in 2022, and to Voorhees University and other HBCUs in 2024. The latter grant illustrates well how the AEN uses ostensibly progressive programming—namely funding education on the imporant ”historic alliance between Black and Jewish communities in the U.S.”— to whitewash the racial supremacy underscoring Zionist ideology and Israel’s decades-long project of colonial domination and erasure of Palestinians.
The AEN also run an Abraham Accords Campus Initiative, which trains and leverages hundreds of faculty members to promote Israel normalization on their campuses. The AEN’s Miriam Elman and Raeefa Shams praise the so-called peace-building framework of the Accords that the Palestinian right to self-determination, arguing that it provides a useful model for improving “interfaith” dialogue on campuses that can challenge any academic boycott of Israel. The initiative also funds inter-disciplinary conferences that “explore the economic, political and religious opportunities made possible by the Accords framework.”
Most recently, the AEN launched the Legal Exchange Academic Delegation (LEAD), leading a delegation of over 20 law faculty and advisors on an all-expense paid 5-day trip to Israel in November 2025 to network with Israeli academics and lawyers.