The Anti-Defamation League gave Penn a “C” rating on its 2025 Campus Report Card, marking an improvement from the “D” rating the University received in 2024.
The ADL — which publishes annual reports about “the current state of antisemitism on campus and how universities and colleges are responding” — rated Penn “above expectations” in publicly disclosing administrative actions and “excellent” in Jewish life on campus. However, the report noted a high number of concerns regarding alleged incidents of antisemitic conduct on Penn’s campus.
A University spokesperson declined a request for comment.
The report card highlighted efforts taken by the University to address antisemitism on campus, such as former Penn President Liz Magill’s creation of an antisemitism task force and Penn’s establishment of an Office of Religious and Ethnic Inclusion.
“Penn has also made efforts to encourage more students to report bias or harassment and has increased its security services on campus,” the report read.
Following the release of the 2025 Campus Report Card, the United States House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairperson Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) wrote in a statement that the report is a signal “for university heads to take action.”
“Today’s Campus Report Card is a painful reminder of the scourge of antisemitism that is infecting colleges across our country,” the statement read. “Too often, we hear of terrorist-supporting mobs overtaking academic buildings, harassing Jewish students, and causing chaos on campuses — clearly breaking the rules laid out by schools.”
The ADL assigned institutions a grade based on factors including “Publicly Disclosed Administrative Actions,” “Jewish Life on Campus,” and “Campus Conduct and Climate Concerns.” In the “Publicly Disclosed Administrative Actions” category, Penn met expectations in several areas through its inclusion of antisemitism in its code of conduct and policies, implementation of “mandatory antisemitism education for students and staff,” and clarity of “time, place and manner policies” with regard to free speech on campus.
Penn exceeded expectations in all nine of the remaining criteria within the administrative action category. The University also received the highest marks in the “Jewish life on campus” category due to its active Jewish organizations, with all 13 criteria in the category rated as “excellent.”
However, Penn was flagged in the “Campus Conduct and Climate Concerns” category — with the report noting a “high” level of severe antisemitic or anti-Zionist incidents, anti-Zionist student government activity, anti-Zionist student groups, and hostile anti-Zionist staff and faculty activity.
The report cited several incidents that it deemed “antisemitic,” including campus graffiti vandalism in October 2024 that read “Sinwar Lives” and “Kill Zios” and the 16-day Gaza Solidarity Encampment in spring 2024.
Penn has seen heightened tensions on campus between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups in the past two years in response to the Israel-Hamas war. The report referenced several incidents from 2023 related to antisemitism on campus, including the Department of Education’s Title VI investigation into Penn following a complaint by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law that alleged the school failed to protect Jewish students from incidents of antisemitism.
The report also cited other incidents that drew national attention to antisemitism at Penn in 2023 before the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023 — including the Palestine Writes Literature Festival that “featured several speakers with a history of antisemitism” and other “issues of antisemitic vandalism [that] also occurred on campus prior to October 2023.”
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