A coalition of psychological well being skilled organizations issued a letter to the College of Illinois Chicago on Monday, warning that the varsity has failed to supply “a secure, discrimination-free surroundings for Jewish graduate college students,” citing alleged harassment and biased curriculum.
The assertion, signed by the Jewish Social Work Consortium, Gesher Group Care, Trauma Knowledgeable Studying Alliance and the Chicagoland Jewish Therapists Group, known as on the college to “take speedy, seen steps to deal with antisemitism and anti-Zionism,” together with well timed investigations and secure reporting mechanisms.
The teams pointed to a sequence of incidents detailed by Ally Frank, a social work pupil on the Jane Addams School of Social Work.
Joseph Hendrickson – inventory.adobe.com
Frank advised JNS that on Oct. 6, 2025, as vp of UIC’s Levine Hillel Jewish Scholar Affiliation, she and fellow Hillel pupil leaders had been tabling and elevating consciousness about hostages kidnapped by Hamas when “we ended up being surrounded and mobbed by about three dozen college students” who shouted accusations together with “genocidal child killers.”
“They mentioned that we now have blood on our arms,” she mentioned.
She began recording the scholars to seize faces “in order that after we reported it to the college, hopefully they might establish any of those antagonists,” however that one member of the group “instructed the group to not allow us to go away as a result of they couldn’t belief what we had been going to do with these movies and our ‘Jewy’ connection.”
Police had been known as. It took them roughly half-hour to reach, Frank mentioned.
After reporting the incident to the college and interviews with directors, what adopted was “about three months of basically radio silence,” Frank advised JNS, till a gathering at which the college advised Frank that there was no violation of the coed code of conduct and it didn’t “rise to UIC’s degree of harassment.”
Frank is hopeful that participating immediately with the college, as an alternative of taking authorized motion, will assist create “speedy and sustainable coverage change so {that a} future class of scholars doesn’t really feel the identical approach I do and isn’t impacted the identical approach that I’m.”
She advised JNS she has yet one more yr left at UIC and has considerations about her title and face being connected to the accusations towards the college, however that “the Code of Ethics for the Nationwide Affiliation of Social Employees requires social employees who’re certain by this code to name out injustice once they see it.”
If the college doesn’t take sufficient steps to deal with the problem, Frank mentioned she is going to seek the advice of along with her workforce to determine subsequent steps, “one electronic mail, one dialog at a time.”
