Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s alma mater, Bowdoin College, got a lowly “D” grade — and The New School in New York City got an embarrassing “F” — in The Anti-Defamation League’s third annual campus report card on combating antisemitism.
Mamdani honed his policy and advocacy skills at Bowdoin, a prestigious liberal arts college in Maine, where he created a chapter of the controversial anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine.
But the school, which costs a whopping nearly $94,000 per year, keeps failing when it comes to fighting antisemitism, according to the ADL, which dropped Bowdoin’s grade to a D from a C in 2025.
The ADL flagged what it called “hostile anti-Zionist groups” on the Brunswick campus. In February 2025, an anti-Israel encampment was established inside Bowdoin’s Student Center building, with protesters calling for divestment from and boycotts of Israel, which the new Big Apple mayor supports.
In New York, the New School maintained its F streak for the third consecutive year as the ADL cited a “level of severe antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents” on the Greenwich Village campus as well as “hostile anti-Zionist student groups.”
In November 2025, leaflets reading “Hillel Funds Genocide” were distributed at the liberal arts school. Hillel is a Jewish pro-Israel student group.
But ADL cited solid improvements at many other schools, including in New York:
- New York University jumped from a B in last year’s report to an A this year.
- CUNY’s Baruch College and Brooklyn College also improved from a B in 2025 to an A this year, as did Vassar College in Poughkeepsie.
- Barnard College improved from a D to a B, and affiliated Columbia University jumped from a lowly D to a gentleman’s C.
Some major State University of New York schools received solid grades for having a safe environment for Jewish students. SUNY Albany and Rockland Community College earned an A and Stony Brook, Binghamton and Buffalo received a B.
But overall, most elite Ivy League schools got mediocre grades.
Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and Yale received a C grade.
The ADL said the campus report cards on antisemitism spurred improvement. Only 23% of the reviewed colleges and universities received As and Bs in 2024.
That figure jumped from 41% with higher grades in 2025 to 58% in 2026.
Additionally, the grades of 47% of the 135 schools graded in 2025 improved in 2026.
“The data confirms what we’ve said from the start: maintaining a safe campus climate is a matter of will,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
“Universities that have taken a comprehensive approach – reviewing policies, clarifying expectations, and strengthening enforcement – are seeing meaningful progress. Some of the strongest gains are coming from institutions that have engaged deeply with our recommendations and translated them into lasting institutional practice, rather than symbolic commitments,” he said.
Other schools receiving F grades are California State University, Los Angeles; Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and Scripps College in Claremont, California.
Among the other schools receiving A grades include John Hopkins U., University of Southern California and the University of Miami.