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In this episode of Education on the Line, we get a rare insider's portrait of how the Trump Administration is targeting the university by alleging rampant anti-semitism throughout the system. Host Louis Freedberg interviews Ejaz Baluch, who until May 2025 was a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice. He is now a senior staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice and a lecturer at Columbia Law School. Along with dozens of his colleagues, he resigned from his "dream job" in the Justice Department when it became clear that the results of the anti-Semitism investigation were pre-ordained before it even began. In fact, Baluch and his fellow attorneys were given a mere 30 days to investigate the 10-campus system and produce a draft complaint ready for filing. Concluding that the university was not violating the law was not an option. Like many of its peer institutions, the university continues to fend off a string of investigations, findings and lawsuits launched by the Trump administration. The latest is the charge that the UC Berkeley School of Law discriminates against white and Asian students in its admissions policies -- charges university leaders vehemently deny. Don't miss Ejaz Baluch's stark portrait of how, and why, charges like these continue to emanate from the Department of Justice.

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Guests:

Ejaz Baluch is a senior staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, a lecturer at Columbia Law School, and a former senior trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.