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The University of California, Berkeley, told around 160 people that their names were in documents related to antisemitism complaints that were demanded by the Trump administration.
Sept. 13, 2025, 4:13 a.m. ET
The University of California, Berkeley, said on Friday that it has provided the names of students, faculty and staff in cases of alleged antisemitism to the federal government, complying with the Trump administration’s investigation of universities that it has accused of failing to protect Jewish students.
The university said in a statement that it notified about 160 people on Sept. 4 that they were named in documents provided to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The Daily Californian, a student-run newspaper, first reported the disclosure on Wednesday.
U.C. Berkeley said it had been directed by the University of California system’s Office of the General Counsel to comply with the federal government’s demand for documents related to how the university handles complaints about antisemitism. “Numerous documents” were provided to the Education Department over recent months, U.C. Berkeley said.
Those notified on Sept. 4 included people who were accused of or affected by antisemitic incidents, as well as the individuals who had filed the antisemitism complaints, according to the university.
President Trump has put extraordinary pressure on American universities this year, threatening to cut off federal funding and, in some cases, their ability to enroll foreign students. The government has ordered a freeze on billions of dollars in research funding.
The Trump administration’s main targets have been elite universities, which Mr. Trump and his allies have said are bastions of ideological indoctrination and antisemitism. U.C. Berkeley is among the 10 universities that a Trump administration task force on antisemitism has identified for particular attention.
The federal cuts have been deep at universities in California, a state where scientific research is a critical economic engine for sectors including technology and agriculture.
The Department of Education opened an investigation in February into how U.C. Berkeley and four other universities handled complaints of alleged antisemitism. In July, Rich Lyons, the chancellor of Berkeley, and the leaders of two other universities were grilled by Republican lawmakers, who accused them of failing to combat antisemitism on their campuses.
“We have a solemn obligation to protect our community from discrimination and harassment, while also upholding the First Amendment right to free speech,” Mr. Lyons said in his testimony to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Some U.C. Berkeley alumni expressed their strong disapproval of sharing the information with the government. One, the publisher Steve Wasserman, invoked the university’s reputation as the cradle of the free speech movement in the 1960s, in which students fought to expand political expression on the Berkeley campus.
“Lyons’ public statements before Congress seem to suggest a certain resilience and a certain desire to do the right thing. But apparently when push came to shove, they secretly shared 160 names with the Trump administration,” said Mr. Wasserman, who jointly runs Heyday Books, in a phone interview on Friday.
University officials have noted that there are legal limits to their pushback against government requests.
The University of California system said that, like all public universities, it was subject to state and federal oversight. It said in a statement that it “is committed to protecting the privacy of our students, faculty, and staff to the greatest extent possible, while fulfilling its legal obligations.”
Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
