Campus Reform: Tim Walberg demands action from prominent medical schools regarding alleged anti-Jewish bias

Republican Rep. Tim Walberg is pressing three major medical schools over anti-Semitism on campus.

On Aug. 25, Walberg, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, sent letters to the University of Illinois College of Medicine (UICOM), the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Geffen School of Medicine. 

He demanded explanations for their alleged failures to address anti-Semitism, citing multiple reported incidents. Walberg emphasized that under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the schools are legally required to prevent discrimination and harassment. 

The letters call on administrators to detail the steps they have taken to protect students and staff and ensure compliance with federal civil rights obligations.

“A UCSF professor posted a news article that cited an unfounded antisemitic claim by Hamas that Israel stole organs from corpses,” Walberg wrote in the letter to UCSF. “When faculty or staff show support for Hamas’ actions, many Jewish students perceive these statements as threatening not only to the state of Israel but to the Jewish people more broadly.”

“In the UCLA Class of 2025 group chat on October 7th, a student compared the actions of Hamas to a ‘slave rebellion’ and said that Israeli families were ‘overseers’ and therefore didn’t deserve to be mourned,” Walberg added in the letter to UCLA.

Chairman Walberg also expressed concern that an official at UICOM who is responsible for addressing anti-Semitism is seen by some Jewish students as worsening their hostile environment.

In a statement provided to Campus Reform, Phil Hampton, UCLA Health’s Director of Communications, stated that anti-Semitism has “no place” at UCLA’s medical school. “Protecting the civil rights of our Jewish community members remains a top priority,” Hampton added.

“We are committed to fair processes in all our educational programs and activities, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws and continue to take specific steps to foster an environment free of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment,” Hampton concluded.

In late July, the Trump Administration froze nearly $584 million in federal research grants to UCLA after the Department of Justice concluded that the school failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from a hostile environment following Hamas’ attacks on Israel.