Cal Poly absent as ADL campus grades rise, leaving key comparisons untested
cal poly is not mentioned in the available ADL campus antisemitism “report card” details, even as the same release highlights grade changes and a surge in higher marks across other institutions. That omission matters because the context includes multiple examples of schools whose grades moved after federal settlements or campus incidents, creating a public benchmark that cannot be applied to cal poly based on the record provided.
ADL report cards: Columbia, Brown, Penn and UVA see higher marks
The Anti-Defamation League’s campus antisemitism report cards, released this week, show higher marks for universities that reached settlements with the Trump administration last year to preserve federal funding. The context identifies Columbia, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia as schools that “struck deals” and then saw their ADL grades boosted.
Those settlements were tied to federal civil rights investigations, with some involving large payouts. The context also characterizes the report card cycle as the ADL’s third year of grading how universities have handled antisemitism, and the first to reflect the Trump administration’s campus antisemitism policies. Those policies have been praised by some Jewish groups as necessary, while others criticized them as using antisemitism as a pretext to crack down on academic freedom.
Separately, the context points to how schools and external pressures may interact with campus actions. Shira Goodman, head of the ADL’s Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education, is quoted saying that some policies may have affected what is happening on campus, which in turn impacts grades. Still, she also said neither a university’s dealings with the government nor litigation from private organizations, including the ADL, affected a school’s grade; she described those forces as more likely to prompt universities to take antisemitism concerns more seriously.
UCLA’s D-to-B upgrade and Penn’s mixed legal posture complicate the narrative
One confirmed data point in the context is that UCLA rose from a D to a B, and its chancellor Julio Frenk celebrated the upgrade. Yet, the same context also states that UCLA’s rise occurred even as the Trump administration has gone after the school on several fronts. That pairing leaves a tension in the public story: a higher grade can coincide with ongoing federal scrutiny, rather than replacing it.
The University of Pennsylvania provides a second, distinct example of how a single narrative thread does not capture the whole record. Penn’s grade rose from C to B, and it struck a settlement involving transgender athletes rather than antisemitism. At the same time, the context states Penn continues to fend off Trump legal action on antisemitism and argued in court this week against a federal demand to turn over a list of Jewish faculty and staff as part of an ongoing investigation. The report card improvement and the persistence of legal conflict sit side-by-side in the documented record.
What remains unclear is how the ADL’s grading framework weighs institutional steps that may overlap with settlement terms while also remaining insulated, at least formally, from the existence of settlements themselves. Goodman’s statements draw that boundary: actions like settlements and litigation are not part of the grade calculation, but may still change university behavior in ways the grading rubric measures.
Bowdoin, The New School and the missing Cal Poly baseline
The context also includes schools with low grades and specific allegations of campus activity cited by the ADL. Bowdoin College received a D, down from a C in 2025, and The New School maintained an F for the third consecutive year. The ADL cited what it called severe antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents at The New School, along with hostile anti-Zionist student groups; the context also notes leaflets reading “Hillel Funds Genocide” were distributed there in November 2025.
At Bowdoin, the context states the ADL flagged what it called hostile anti-Zionist groups on the Brunswick campus, and it describes an anti-Israel encampment established inside Bowdoin’s Student Center building in February 2025, with protesters calling for divestment from and boycotts of Israel. These campus-specific details illustrate how the report cards can hinge on documented incidents and the presence of student groups, at least as described in the context.
The same record also presents an overall improvement claim: the share of reviewed colleges and universities receiving As and Bs rose from 23% in 2024 to 41% in 2025 and then to 58% in 2026. Additionally, the grades of 47% of the 135 schools graded in 2025 improved in 2026. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt is quoted saying the data confirms that maintaining a safe campus climate is “a matter of will, ” and he links stronger gains to institutions that reviewed policies, clarified expectations, and strengthened enforcement.
Still, the context does not confirm where cal poly appears in any year of the grading, whether it was evaluated, or how it scored. That gap limits what can be responsibly concluded from the broader improvement narrative. The record offers multiple reference points, including SUNY Albany and Rockland Community College earning an A, and Stony Brook, Binghamton and Buffalo receiving a B, as well as other Fs that include California State University, Los Angeles, Evergreen State College, and Scripps College. But there is no stated basis here for situating cal poly among those outcomes.
The evidence threshold that would resolve the comparison is straightforward: the context would need to confirm whether cal poly was graded, what documentation (if any) was submitted during the assessment process, and what grade it received. If cal poly is confirmed to be among the universities assessed, it would establish whether the report card’s national pattern of improvement applies to cal poly or whether it diverges from it.
