AEN offers several programs for university administrators, including consultations, workshops, grants, and their signature seminar series. The latter is a year-long “professional development” program which aims to “engage administrators in intensive learning about the Jewish experience, antisemitism and Israel.” The program brings participants to convene for immersive workshops in Washington DC and NYC before culminating in a free week-long propaganda trip to Israel.
AEN has worked with 3,000 administrators since 2020. Most of these partnerships are unannounced. Often, faculty and students only learn that AEN has been on campus or partnered with their campus after administrators have adopted repressive policies. The program brochure for their signature seminar series boasts that administrators from the following schools have participated:
- Barnard College
- George Washington University
- New York University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Davis
- University of Connecticut
- University of Southern California
- Colorado State University
- Indiana University
- San Francisco State University
- University of Minnesota
- Yale University
We are compiling a longer list of universities and colleges where administrators have participated in AEN programs and/or AEN sponsored trips to Israel. If you have information, please get in touch.
Case Study: New York University
The relationship between NYU and the AEN goes back to 2019 when NYU received a $7,000 grant from AEN’s fiscal sponsor, the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), for “Israel education and programming on campus.” NYU began sending administrators to AEN’s signature seminar series in the 2020-21 academic year, including the program’s free week-long trip to Israel. The first cohort of participants included Senior Vice President for University Life Jason Pina, Associate Dean of Students Craig Jolley, Senior Director for Global Spiritual Life Melissa Carter and at least one former administrator at NYU Stern. Pina returned for a second trip to Israel with the AEN in 2023. When later interviewed, Jolley reflected that “before participating in the Signature Series, he had separated criticism of Israel and of Zionism from antisemitic speech — whereas afterwards, he was more receptive to treating Zionism as a protected aspect of Jewish identity.”
In 2021, NYU began participating in the Campus Climate Initiative, a partnership between the AEN and Hillel focused on IHRA-defined antisemitism training. Former NYU President Andrew Hamilton confirmed the university’s relationship with the AEN in 2022 during his testimony to NYC Council’s Higher Education Committee, noting that NYU had been engaging in “regular meetings” with the AEN and Hillel “to identify and create best-practices for addressing antisemitism.”
Current NYU President Linda Mills has since leaned on the lobbying organization to respond to campus-wide protests in the aftermath of October 7, 2023. The AEN was named a partner in the November 2023 establishment of NYU’s Center for the Study of Antisemitism, quoting in its press release AEN Executive Director Miriam Elman and AEN’s ICCI Director Naomi Greenspan. The following semester, NYU faculty established the first chapter of the AEN-sponsored Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement (FAAM).
Throughout the spring and summer 2024 semesters, NYU was allegedly challenging a misinformation-packed lawsuit filed by three Jewish students, as part of a wave of Title VI lawfare backed by Israel lobbying groups. The university abruptly and secretly settled that lawsuit in August, agreeing as part of the settlement to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism which equated anti-zionism with antisemitism, appoint a new Title VI Coordinator, and strengthen its relationship with Tel Aviv University. Additionally, NYU became the first university to unprecedentedly codify “Zionist” as a protected identity in its updated Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harrassement guidelines. Elman publicly praised Mills for providing “a model text for other universities nationwide to adopt” and boasted that the AEN “looks forward to continuing to work with NYU administrators & officials across the school in order to develop more best practices around these goals & to support their full implementation!” Elman also called on NYU’s Title VI Coordinator to “address the faculty challenges at NYU,” singling out in particular the “agenda” of NYU’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.
Curiously, in July 2024, just before the settlement was announced, Mills was a guest speaker at an AEN/FAAM Signature Seminar Series event in NYC, where she explained “her groundbreaking approach to improving the campus climate for Jewish and all students.” NYU has since denied that the AEN was involved in formulating the NDAH language—but has refused to release details of the parties involved in the settlement.