(Bloomberg) -- Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said a basic mission of college administrators should be to protect students, as universities across the US grapple with surging tensions after the Hamas attack on Israel.

“Our primary responsibility is to make sure students are safe and can be unapologetically themselves on campus,” Cardona said in an interview on Bloomberg Television with David Westin on Friday. “I’ve spoken to students over the last couple months who have felt harassed.”

The Department of Education is handling more than two dozen investigations following complaints of incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses since the Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The schools targeted include Harvard, Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as the University of California at Los Angeles.

Read more: MIT Added to List of Colleges Under US Probe for Discrimination

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin in institutions that receive federal funding. While the Education Department could withhold funding from schools, it typically seeks to negotiate settlements. 

In a separate interview, Cardona said he is often asked if his department would be willing to take money away from colleges.

“The answer is yes,” he said. “But if we get there, there’s a whole host of issues we never want to do. Who suffers there, right? It’s the students. So I can tell you what I know from previous cases, and what my intention is. As we get the resolution, we want to improve the environments on campuses that lead to discriminatory behaviors and feeling of harassment by students.”

A study released in November by the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International found 73% of Jewish college students and 44% of non-Jewish students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the start of the school year.

A congressional hearing last month on antisemitism turned into a public relations disaster for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania after they failed to condemn calls for genocide against Jews as a violation of university policy. Penn President Liz Magill stepped down days after the hearing, while Harvard’s Claudine Gay resigned this week under additional pressure from plagiarism allegations.

Read more: Why Israel-Hamas War Puts Heat on College Leaders: QuickTake

--With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse and David Westin.

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