A coalition of organizations focusing on mental health has sent a letter to the University of Illinois Chicago, expressing concern over the school’s inability to ensure a “safe, discrimination-free environment for Jewish graduate students.” The letter highlights allegations of harassment and a biased curriculum.
The letter, endorsed by the Jewish Social Work Consortium, Gesher Community Care, Trauma Informed Learning Alliance, and the Chicagoland Jewish Therapists Group, urges the university to “promptly and visibly address antisemitism and anti-Zionism.” It suggests measures such as conducting timely investigations and establishing secure reporting channels.
The organizations referenced a series of incidents shared by Ally Frank, a student at the Jane Addams College of Social Work.
Frank recounted to JNS an experience on October 6, 2025. In her role as vice president of UIC’s Levine Hillel Jewish Student Association, she and other leaders were hosting an informational table to highlight the plight of hostages taken by Hamas. During this event, they were reportedly “surrounded and mobbed by about three dozen students” who hurled accusations like “genocidal baby killers” at them.
“They claimed we had blood on our hands,” Frank reported.
In an effort to document the event, Frank began recording the crowd to help the university identify the individuals involved when reporting the incident. However, one person in the group allegedly instructed others to prevent them from leaving, expressing distrust over their “Jewy” connections and the potential use of the videos.
Police were called. It took them approximately 30 minutes to arrive, Frank said.
After reporting the incident to the university and interviews with administrators, what followed was “about three months of essentially radio silence,” Frank told JNS, until a meeting at which the university told Frank that there was no violation of the student code of conduct and it did not “rise to UIC’s level of harassment.”
Frank is hopeful that engaging directly with the university, instead of taking legal action, will help create “immediate and sustainable policy change so that a future class of students doesn’t feel the same way I do and is not impacted the same way that I am.”
She told JNS she has one more year left at UIC and has concerns about her name and face being attached to the accusations against the university, but that “the Code of Ethics for the National Association of Social Workers requires social workers who are bound by this code to call out injustice when they see it.”
If the university does not take adequate steps to address the issue, Frank said she will consult with her team to figure out next steps, “one email, one conversation at a time.”
