In response to an Anti Defamation League report showing several major Massachusetts colleges failing to address a rising tide of antisemitism, one U.S. lawmaker says he wants some answers on how the schools will improve their grades.

In a report released earlier this month, the ADL awarded just two of the ten Bay State universities that they examined with a grade of B or better regarding their response to a nationwide uptick in antisemitism.

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, in a draft letter addressed to those eight poorly-performing universities and shared exclusively with the Herald, says he wants to know what those schools are doing to match antisemitism efforts seen at Brandeis University and Amherst College, the only commonwealth colleges to receive a better than average grade.

“I write to request that, by Friday, May 17, 2024, each college and university in Massachusetts that received a ‘C’ or below detail the concrete actions that the institution’s leadership will take to address antisemitism and hate on your campuses and earn an ‘A’ on the ADL’s next Campus Antisemitism Report Card,” the Newton native wrote.

According to the congressman, antisemitism has been allowed to fester on college campuses for far too long, well before Hamas-backed terrorists attacked Israel on October 7 and killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and plunged the region into a now 7-month-old war that has seen tens of thousands more civilians killed by the Israeli military.

Students on campuses across the country have responded to the violence in Gaza with protests, and some have turned to outright occupation of school buildings and encampment on university grounds, all while calling on school administrators to divest from business entanglements with the Israeli government. Hundreds of students and faculty have been arrested by police, including in Boston, after being ordered to disperse.

“At a time when antisemitic incidents on campuses are at historic levels, administrators must adopt new policies to address this scourge, enforce existing codes of conduct, and re-center faculty and staff on the mission to educate critical thinkers able to engage in civil discourse,” Auchincloss wrote.

The ADL examined 85 U.S. universities in their report, including 10 in Massachusetts, “representing colleges in the U.S. with the highest Jewish student populations and top national and liberal arts colleges.”

Schools were examined based off 21 criteria broadly split into three categories: administrative action and policies, incidents on campus, and Jewish student life on campus.

Auchincloss is asking for answers from Boston University, Northeastern University, Wellesley College, and Williams College, which each received a ‘C’ grade, as well as Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University, and UMass Amherst, which each received an ‘F’ grade.

“Massachusetts’ universities are some of the highest-ranked academically in the nation. We must ensure that campuses in our state are welcoming environments for all students to pursue their studies, including Jewish students,” he wrote.

Emerson University, where more than 100 protesters were arrested, was not graded by the ADL.

Auchincloss, according to his staff, has been in touch with the President’s of Harvard and MIT as protests rock those campuses, and he has insisted they “enforce their own time, place, and manner policies to ensure a welcoming learning environment for Jewish students.”