In December, a full-page ad in The New York Times proclaimed, “No slogans, just moral clarity at Brandeis University.” The “virulent antisemitism” that had infiltrated many colleges, the message stated, would not be tolerated at Jewish-founded Brandeis.
The ad arrived amid simmering tensions on college campuses over Israel’s war in Gaza. Brandeis had already embarked on a branding campaign earlier in 2023 to highlight its cultural roots, academic portfolio, and social-justice values, but when the war hit, the university leaned in.
Brandeis’s president, Ronald D. Liebowitz, penned an opinion essay in The Boston Globe urging colleges to respond more forcefully to campus antisemitism. The university’s admissions office posted a series of videos on its Instagram account featuring students talking about what it means to be Jewish at Brandeis.
In one, a student named Eitan describes Brandeis in three words: vibrant, diverse, and me’uchedet, which he said means “unified together” in Hebrew.
“For Jewish students in America who want to have access to really incredible higher education,” Eitan said, “and be able, at the same time, not just to feel safe in their Jewish identity, but to celebrate their Jewish identity, Brandeis is the place for you.”
Brandeis isn’t making an enrollment push for Jewish students, officials say, and hasn’t eased its transfer requirements. (Enrollment has held steady over the past decade.)
Rather, officials say, the university is taking the opportunity to articulate its values. The messaging frequently refers back to the university’s founding, in 1948 — the same year as Israel’s — as a place for Jews scorned by elite colleges’ quotas to get a good education.
Today, a number of colleges are publicly touting their support for Jewish students. Some are even dangling carrots to students who might want to transfer.
These institutions are following a familiar playbook. In 2020, historically Black colleges seized on Black Lives Matter protests in response to George Floyd’s murder to recruit students who sought distinctly Black educational environments. In the years since, many HBCUs have enjoyed a higher profile and a bump in applications from students looking for a home.
Current events — the end of race-conscious admissions, the unrest over the Israel-Hamas war, and the wave of state laws banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts — have created a unique opening for colleges founded to serve certain identities. These institutions are making a provocative pitch: If your institution has failed you, come here, and we will protect you.
Campus leaders insist that what they’re doing isn’t some thinly veiled enrollment hack. Identity-based marketing is a way of spelling out what they stand for, they say, at a time when brand matters more than ever. Will students take them up on the offer?
Since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last fall, campuses have been the sites of a proxy war over progressive speech and antisemitism, as pro-Israel students, alumni, and donors have accused administrators of allowing antisemitic sentiment to fester. Pro-Palestinian students and academics say their rhetoric is not antisemitic; as they see it, they are urging college leaders to condemn Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed some 28,000 people, and stop kowtowing to donors.
But some Jewish students feel that they are being targeted by that activism, and are eyeing the exits.
In response, a handful of small colleges, as well as the 12-campus State University System of Florida, have started campaigns to recruit Jewish students and make transferring easy for them.
In late October, Walsh University and Franciscan University of Steubenville, both Catholic universities in Ohio, promised fast-track transfers for Jewish students seeking refuge. Spokespeople for the two universities said in February 2024 that while they haven’t received any official transfers yet, the offer remains open.
According to federal and institutional data, Franciscan’s total undergraduate fall enrollment increased by about 41 percent between 2013 and 2023, while Walsh’s enrollment declined by about 38 percent. Officials from both Walsh and Franciscan emphasized that enrollment was not the primary motivation for the fast-track policy.
We thought that it would be reasonable to try to encourage people to take advantage of the relatively protected environment we have.
In January, Touro University, a Jewish institution, created a “Safe Campus Scholarship” for undergraduate students who transfer to its New York School of Career and Applied Studies from colleges where they no longer feel safe. The scholarship covers a quarter of tuition costs per semester for up to seven semesters.
“We thought that it would be reasonable to try to encourage people to take advantage of the relatively protected environment we have,” said Alan Kadish, Touro’s president, in an interview with The Chronicle.
The scholarship is one of a number of measures Touro has taken to try to reach Jewish students. For several weeks in December, the university offered instant decision to applicants who sought to transfer there in the spring because of safety fears. Touro also took out several large advertisements depicting menorahs at a mall in Bergen County, N.J., a heavily Jewish area. Advertisements placed elsewhere included images of mezuzas, doorposts that mark Jewish homes, and comments from Jewish students on their experiences at Touro.
Kadish said a “handful” of scholarship recipients have already transferred to Touro, but he couldn’t give an exact number. Several dozen, Kadish said, had applied and shown interest for the fall.
Total undergraduate fall enrollment at Touro University fell by about 27 percent between 2013 and 2023, federal and institutional data show. When asked whether he saw the scholarship as a way of increasing enrollment, Kadish said yes. It wasn’t the main goal, he said, adding that the university isn’t as dependent on undergraduate enrollment as others, thanks to its high concentration of graduate students.
In December, the president of Assumption University, in Massachusetts, Greg Weiner, argued in an opinion essay for The Wall Street Journal that Catholic institutions like the one he leads can offer Jewish students an intellectual home.
“For Jews in the U.S., admission to elite universities has historically meant a hard-earned entry into the American mainstream,” Weiner, who is Jewish, wrote in the essay. “Now that we are finding we are less welcome than we had assumed in these universities and the mainstream, we might consider which institutions will fulfill our traditional love of learning.”
Assumption isn’t waiving any admission requirements. The university’s total undergraduate fall enrollment fell by about a quarter between 2013 and 2023, according to federal and institutional data, but applications for the class of 2028 are up 26 percent from the previous year. “That resurgence well preceded The Wall Street Journal essay, which I wrote as a Jewish person, Jewish parent, and Jewish educator, not as a recruiter,” Weiner wrote in an email to The Chronicle. Similarly, a spokeswoman from Brandeis said in an email that the president’s outspokenness on efforts to counter antisemitism “has really been about demonstrating leadership around the issues that have arisen, not as an enrollment marketing strategy.”
The president of New College of Florida, meanwhile, wrote his own opinion essay in the Journal, presenting the institution as an alternative to elite colleges that have allegedly let antisemitism run amok.
Florida’s public colleges have eased their transfer requirements — because the governor told them to. In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, asserted that the state’s colleges were “experiencing an elevated number of inquiries from out-of-state students to transfer,” and directed institutions to accommodate Jewish undergraduates fleeing antisemitism.
The resulting emergency order states that each college must assess whether a transfer applicant has shown “a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of religion.” Spokespeople for Florida’s university and college systems haven’t said how many students have taken advantage of the new policy, but in mid-February The Gainesville Sun reported that at least five people have applied to Florida universities through the transfer policy.
The order repeatedly references antisemitism, but Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the State University System of Florida, told The Chronicle in January that the order applies to all students who are fleeing religious persecution, not just to Jewish students.
There hasn’t been a wave of colleges declaring that they are safe spaces for Muslims amid the Israel-Hamas war. But some campus leaders have said that their welcome mats for Jewish students extend to Muslim students, too.
There is a recent precedent for what these colleges are doing.
The unrest over the murder of George Floyd in 2020 tested predominantly white institutions’ commitment to racial justice. Historically Black colleges, which for decades had been plagued by negative media attention questioning their finances and graduation rates, dove headlong into public-relations campaigns touting their rich history and importance to Black culture and success.
Their efforts paid off: Many HBCUs saw their application numbers rise after years of stagnant or decreasing enrollment. Twenty-three campuses received an infusion of donations totaling more than half a billion dollars from MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Michael Sorrell, the longtime president of Paul Quinn College, in Texas, emphasized that it was not just Floyd’s murder that led more Black parents to feel that their children would be better off at HBCUs.
“It’s about University of Oklahoma,” he said, referring to the racist video an OU fraternity made in 2015. “It’s about Michael Brown. It’s about Eric Garner. … It’s about the Tea Party and the way that they campaign. It’s about legislatures that don’t want to teach American history that tells the story of why these issues are important to us. It’s about the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Since 2020, the end of race-conscious admissions and the annihilation of diversity efforts in red states have fueled continued interest in HBCUs. Moreover, high-profile academics like Nikole Hannah-Jones have flocked to Black colleges after being spurned by predominantly white ones.
Morgan State University’s total undergraduate fall enrollment increased by nearly a third between 2020 and 2023. Howard University’s increased by nearly 30 percent. Paul Quinn’s increased by nearly a third.
The United Negro College Fund, which finances scholarships for students attending private HBCUs and directly supports the colleges themselves, topped $216 million in donations in the 2021 fiscal year, a record amount at the time. Then, during the 2023 fiscal year, UNCF landed $354 million in donations. In early 2024, the nonprofit received a $100-million grant from the Lilly Endowment, the largest unrestricted gift in its history.
HBCUs and affiliated organizations have been able to tap into this surging interest through their marketing, reaching an even-larger audience on the internet. Young people, naturally, are a big help with that.
Robert Mason, founder of the Common Black College Application, which allows high-school students to apply to up to 66 participating HBCUs for only $20, said that in early 2024 the organization had received 60 percent more applications compared to the same time last year.
Mason said many students are inspired to use the app because of news articles about those who receive dozens of acceptance letters and millions of dollars in scholarship offers from HBCUs. Many of those recipients used the Common Black application, Mason said.
HBCUs have also adopted a more aggressive approach to marketing themselves.
“That shift in how they viewed themselves and in how they portrayed themselves was significant for recruiting students,” said Teresa Valerio Parrot, a communications professional who works with colleges, “but also then appealing to Hispanic students and to other students who may have seen themselves in the pride and in the success and in the community that the HBCUs have been able to communicate.”
Talladega College, in Alabama, has featured alumni and current students sharing their college experience in video testimonials, and worked with social-media influencers to promote the college’s brand.
Much of that marketing has highlighted hallmarks of HBCU campus life, like a vibrant marching band and a healthy rivalry with other HBCUs’ athletic teams. Talladega’s marching band also controversially participated in former President Donald Trump’s inauguration parade in 2017, and afterward saw their application numbers and donations increase. The university declined interview requests.
Not all HBCUs are doing well. As with predominantly white institutions, small colleges in rural areas are increasingly losing out to large ones in cities. And as with PWIs, some of those small colleges have been forced to close.
Still, many HBCUs have met the moment by emphasizing how they set students up for successful futures. For Black students, going to an HBCU strips away the pressures that come with attending predominantly white institutions, Sorrell said.
At an HBCU, “if you’re a Black student and someone doesn’t like you, race has nothing to do with it,” he said. “They just don’t like you. Doesn’t have to do with any funky racial dynamics. … It just has to do with the content of your character. If you get an F, it doesn’t have anything to do with somebody didn’t like you ‘cause you were Black or Latino. You deserved an F.”
In a divisive political climate, students want their institutions to mirror their values and reflect their identities.
The messages that colleges are sending — standing against antisemitism, stressing a distinguished history of serving Black students, highlighting the intellectual core of religious education — help define their brand.
But it’s no quick fix. Shaping students’ perceptions of colleges, and their decisions about where to enroll, takes time.
Though the measures rolled out by colleges since the October 7 attack may have long-term effects, they probably will not result in an immediate influx of Jewish students seeking relief from antisemitism. Transferring has its costs, of course, and many students feel the obligation to stay and tend to their existing communities.
Talia Dror, a junior at Cornell University who testified before Congress on antisemitism last fall, said she admired that some colleges had stepped up to offer Jewish students a home. But, she said, “I genuinely do believe that fleeing from elite educational institutions will only lead to no Jews being left on our campuses.”
A close Jewish friend of Dror’s recently transferred out of Cornell. While additional factors were involved in his decision, the fallout from October 7 “was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Dror said.
Dror said she wants to stay at Cornell and reform its culture.
“I’ve worked my whole life to get into Cornell,” she said. “There is no way I’m going to leave just because a bunch of people are radicalized and hate Jews.”
