The Anti-Defamation League — a national advocacy organization with the stated purpose of combating antisemitism and other forms of discrimination — released its third annual Campus Antisemitism Report Card March 10, awarding the University a B grade. The score places the University among a group of schools the organization says is making meaningful progress in protecting Jewish students, but fell short of top marks earned by peers like Johns Hopkins University and American University.
The B grade marks the University’s second consecutive year of improvement on the ADL’s annual assessment. The University received a D in 2024 — the ADL’s second-lowest grade, described as reflecting a “deficient approach” — before climbing to a C in 2025, which the ADL characterizes as “corrections needed.” According to the ADL, 47 percent of the 135 schools evaluated in both 2025 and 2026 improved their grades, reflecting a national trend of rising scores.
In the Washington D.C. region, the University was one of seven schools to receive a B rating. Elon University, American University and Johns Hopkins University earned higher grades, while five schools received C grades and North Carolina State University received a D. Nationally, the share of schools earning A or B grades rose from 23.5 percent in 2024 to 58 percent in 2026. In a press release from the ADL, Shira Goodman, ADL vice president of advocacy and head of the Ronald Birnbaum Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education, wrote that improving grades in the report card should not be treated as a finish line for universities addressing antisemitism.
"The campuses showing the greatest improvement are those that treat antisemitism as an ongoing responsibility, not a one-time response,” Goodman wrote. “Treating progress as a finish line risks complacency; meaningful change requires sustained leadership, ongoing assessment and continued vigilance as campus climates evolve."
The 2026 report — which evaluated 150 universities nationwide across 32 criteria — comes six months after the Justice Department closed an investigation into the University over its response to allegations of antisemitism on Grounds.
The Campus Antisemitism Report Card, produced by ADL’s Ronald Birnbaum Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education, evaluates schools using a weighted scoring system across dozens of criteria grouped into three broad categories — publicly disclosed administrative actions, Jewish campus life and campus conduct and climate concerns. Schools can fully meet, partially meet or fail to meet individual criteria, with additional bonus points or deductions applied in certain cases. Those scores are then combined to produce each university’s overall letter grade.
The University received strong marks for maintaining an incident reporting system, an advisory council on antisemitism and Jewish life, religious accommodations policies and rules prohibiting masked harassment and encampments.
The ADL rated the University’s Jewish life on campus as "Excellent," noting the University's active Hillel — a Jewish student organization — Chabad Jewish Greek life and pro-Israel student organizations, among other markers of a strong Jewish campus community.
In a statement to The Cavalier Daily, University spokesperson Bethanie Glover wrote that the University viewed the improved grade as a sign of progress.
“We are pleased to see significant and consistent improvement in the Anti-Defamation League's assessment of the University over the past three years,” Glover said. “The University takes seriously all reports of antisemitism, and we appreciate that the efforts across Grounds to make all students and community members, including those of Jewish faith, feel welcome is reflected in the many positive points outlined in this year’s Campus Antisemitism Report Card.”
Glover added that the University saw fewer reports of potential antisemitism over the past academic year, and that of those reports, many involved protected speech.
Despite those strengths, the most serious concern flagged in the report card fell under the campus conduct and climate concerns category. The criterion assessing the "level of hostile anti-Zionist student groups" received the report's most severe designation, meaning the ADL found anti-Zionist student organizations have been actively engaging in conduct it classifies as antisemitic or anti-Zionist, rather than merely existing on campus.
According to an assessment methodology document the ADL sent to The Cavalier Daily, the organization evaluates a range of activity under this criterion. That includes the promotion of antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric through protests, petitions and events, the targeted harassment of Jewish organizations or community members and the organized disruption of events hosted by Jewish or Israeli organizations.
A foundational element of the ADL’s methodology is its position that anti-Zionism constitutes a form of antisemitism, a stance that shapes how the organization counts activity ranging from protest activity to student group behavior. That framing, however, is not universally accepted and Eli Weinger, member of Jewish Voice for Peace at U.Va. and graduate Batten student, said the ADL’s definition fundamentally conflates political speech with prejudice.
"Antisemitism is a prejudice against Jewish people … Anti-Zionism is saying that every person, regardless of whether they're Palestinian or Israeli, whether they are Jewish or Christian or Muslim or anything else, should be entitled to the same rights and the same dignity,” Weinger said. “We don't think that anyone has the right to oppress anyone else and so the idea that that notion of equality is somehow antisemitic is not only incorrect, but it is deeply offensive."
Two national organizations with chapters at the University are relevant to understanding the ADL's criteria for this designation. The ADL separately describes Students for Justice in Palestine as a group that has justified the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and has been a central organizer of campus encampment protests. The ADL also describes Jewish Voice for Peace as an organization that it says "intentionally exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure supporters that opposition to Israel doesn't contradict Jewish values."
The Cavalier Daily reached out to Jewish Voice for Peace at U.Va. and Students for Justice in Palestine at U.Va. for comment and did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Weinger rejected the ADL’s characterization of Jewish Voice for Peace as an organization that “intentionally exploits Jewish culture and rituals” to legitimize opposition to Israel, saying his activism grew directly from his Jewish upbringing rather than in spite of it.
"It is because of our Judaism, not in spite of our Judaism, that we feel it is vital that every person have the same rights to dignity and to liberty,” Weinger said. “It's deeply offensive for those people to somehow seek to say who's really Jewish and who's not … and it's deeply offensive for the ADL to seek to condition our Jewishness on our political stance on Zionism."
In response to a request for clarification on which groups were labeled “hostile anti-Zionist student groups” from The Cavalier Daily, the ADL said activity associated with several campus groups contributed to the University receiving the report’s “hostile anti-Zionist student groups” designation. Those groups included Students for Justice in Palestine at U.Va., the National Lawyers Guild chapter at U.Va. Law, U.Va. Dissenters and Jewish Voice for Peace at U.Va.
Weinger pushed back on the ADL’s framing and said his experience organizing on Grounds had been the opposite of hostile.
"I have been involved in pro-Palestine organizing for the past several years at U.Va., I have met dozens of incredibly committed, dedicated organizers who are Palestinian, who are from all over the country, who have all different sorts of heritage, and I have been met with nothing but inclusion,” Weinger said. “I've been met with nothing but friendliness and a willingness to work together. And at no point have I ever felt uncomfortable or unsafe because of my Jewish identity in those spaces."
Weinger said the only time his Jewish identity had made him feel uncomfortable at the University was when he felt it was used to justify suppressing protest activity. He referenced the May 2024 encampment on Grounds — part of a nationwide wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in which students at dozens of universities erected tent protests calling on their institutions to divest from companies they said supported the war in Gaza.
Students began demonstrating outside the University chapel before state police were called in to disband the encampment after administrators declared it an unlawful assembly. Twenty-five people were arrested and demonstrators were sprayed with a chemical irritant as police moved in. Weinger said that response did not make Jewish students safer.
"The only time I have ever felt uncomfortable at U.Va. because of my Jewishness is when that Jewishness has been used in the past as an excuse to silence dissent,” Weinger said. “I think about in 2024 when myself and so many other people were pepper sprayed for protesting the removal of the encampment and for protesting for Palestine. The reasoning given was that was supposed to keep us safe. Well, I can tell you that did nothing to keep Jewish people safe."
In addition, the report flagged another area for improvement for the University, noting that antisemitism is not fully incorporated into the University’s code of conduct and policies. Under the ADL’s criteria, schools receive full credit only if their policies explicitly reference antisemitism and recognize that anti-Zionism — the opposition to the existence of a Jewish state — can be a form of antisemitism. Because the University’s policies reference antisemitism but do not include this specific definition with reference to anti-Zionism, the University received only partial credit in that area.
The University also received only partial credit for mandatory antisemitism education. To receive full marks in this category, a university must require antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff. The University’s existing mandatory discrimination course — an online compliance training that covers University policies on discrimination, harassment and reporting procedures — includes antisemitism content, but the University did not receive full marks under the ADL's criteria.
The report also flagged that the University does not have a group specifically supporting Jewish employees, meaning the University did not fulfill that criterion in the Jewish life on campus category.
The report also points to other incidents on Grounds. U.Va. Hillel received an anonymous letter containing a news clipping related to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2024.
"You all, I hope, understand that the more killing this so called leader calls for — including the most recent one — the worse it gets for you all. Are you all concerned for your personal safety not to mention that of your homebase? The sound that evening(s) of Nov. 1938 are not too far off,” the letter said.
Nov. 1938 is a reference to Kristallnacht, a Nazi-led riot in which Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues across Germany and Austria were violently attacked.
Two students were also suspended in December 2024 after a Jewish housemate reported to the University and law enforcement that he had been subjected to antisemitic harassment before one of them entered his bedroom brandishing a firearm the other had purchased.
Weinger said debates over antisemitism and anti-Zionist activism on Grounds reflect broader questions about free expression and student organizing at the University.
“Throughout periods of the University's history, our University has been at its best when students feel like they can have a voice,” Weinger said. “And what you're seeing right now is that voice being silenced.”
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