New Trump demand to colleges: Name protesters — and their nationalities

When federal civil rights attorneys launched investigations in February into whether universities properly responded to antisemitism on campuses, they noticed something unusual about the marching orders from their bosses at the Education Department.

An early step in civil rights investigations is always a letter to the university demanding certain information. Typically, the department asks how many discrimination complaints were received, and what school officials did in response.

But the Trump administration told the attorneys working on the cases to also collect the names and nationalities of students who might have harassed Jewish students or faculty, according to documents and three attorneys with the Office for Civil Rights who have direct knowledge of the situation and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the cases publicly.