EEOC Finds Reasonable Cause in Professor's Case Against University of Illinois Chicago for Discrimination Against Jewish Faculty
The EEOC Finds Reasonable Cause In Our Professor Client’s Case to Believe University of Illinois at Chicago Subjected Jewish and Israeli Faculty to Unlawful Harassment
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found reasonable cause to believe that the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) discriminated against three faculty members — and a class of employees — because of their religion, Judaism, and/or their national origin, Israeli, by subjecting them to harassment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A copy of the Cause Determination is available here.
The EEOC’s Chicago District Office determined that the evidence gathered in its investigation established reasonable cause to believe the harassment occurred from at least January 2022 at the University’s Chicago campus. The Commission issued cause findings in all three charges.
Campus Antisemitism and Civil Rights Law: The University of Illinois Chicago in Focus
Over the past several years, the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has become one of a number of institutions at the center of a national conversation about antisemitism on college campuses. Federal investigations, a congressional inquiry, and complaints from students, faculty, and Jewish community organizations have raised a pointed question: is the university meeting its legal obligations to protect members of its community from discrimination based on Jewish identity, ancestry, or association with Israel?
For students, faculty, and staff who believe they have been subjected to a hostile environment, the answer matters — and so does understanding what the law actually requires. Below is an overview of the developments at UIC and the civil rights frameworks that govern them, including a dimension that often gets overlooked in campus coverage: the rights of the faculty and staff who work there.
What Has Been Reported at UIC
Several developments have drawn public and governmental attention.
- Department of Education investigation (announced December 2023). The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) named UIC among a group of schools it was reviewing amid a national rise in reported antisemitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab incidents on campuses. Metro Chicago Hillel — publicly described a climate of isolation and exclusion for Jewish students at the university.
- Congressional investigation into the College of Medicine (August 2025). The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg, opened an investigation into the University of Illinois College of Medicine — one of three medical schools (alongside UCSF and UCLA) to receive letters demanding answers about alleged failures to address antisemitism under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Committee's letter referenced concerns including the repeated removal of posters raising awareness of hostages taken in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, offensive messages posted by students in internal communication channels, and questions about a university administrator's public conduct.
- Testimony before the Committee (July 2026). The College of Medicine's interim dean testified that the university had taken corrective steps — holding students accountable for hate speech, revising its leadership structure, and discontinuing an internal communication channel described as a forum for offensive commentary.
- Complaints regarding the Jane Addams College of Social Work (2025–2026). A coalition of mental health professional organizations sent a letter warning that the university had failed to provide a discrimination-free environment for Jewish graduate students, citing alleged harassment and biased curriculum. The letter pointed to incidents described by a Jewish student leader, including an October 2025 episode in which students raising awareness about hostages reported being surrounded and intimidated.
- Documented incidents affecting faculty and staff. Watchdog and advocacy organizations have also catalogued departmental endorsements of the BDS movement, protests at Board of Trustees meetings calling for divestment, and — notably for the employment context — a UIC professor who reportedly retired early in 2024, citing antisemitism and an alienating academic environment.
Taken together, these developments describe a campus environment in which members of the university community have raised sustained concerns across the student body, the faculty, and the staff.
The Legal Frameworks That Apply
Campus antisemitism sits at the intersection of several distinct bodies of law, and the protections available depend heavily on whether the person affected is a student or an employee.
Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance — which includes virtually every public university, UIC among them. While Title VI does not, by its terms, cover religion, OCR has long taken the position that it protects students who face discrimination based on actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics — a category that reaches Jewish students, as well as Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and other students. Federal guidance has directed agencies to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when evaluating Title VI complaints, though the application of that definition remains contested and fact-specific.
Deliberate indifference to a known hostile environment can expose an institution to liability and to the loss of federal funding.
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on religion and national origin, including subjecting an employee to a hostile work environment or forcing a resignation that amounts to a constructive discharge. A professor who feels compelled to leave a position because the institution tolerated a discriminatory environment may have a claim.
- The Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA) independently prohibits employment discrimination based on religion, national origin, and ancestry, and provides a state-law avenue for faculty and staff at Illinois institutions.
- Because UIC is a public institution, its employees may also have claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of the Equal Protection Clause, and retaliation against employees who report discrimination is itself independently actionable under both federal and Illinois law.
The distinction matters practically. A tenured professor, an adjunct, a graduate research assistant, and a staff member each have employment-law protections that are separate from — and often stronger than — the Title VI framework that governs student complaints.