The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) recently announced they were seeking specialists to serve as peer reviewers for their 2018 Title VI–Office of International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) grant competitions. Among the programs offering funding in 2018 include the National Resource Centers Program, which “provides grants to establish, strengthen, and operate centers that serve as national resources for teaching, training, and research in modern languages and area studies.”

For more information on how to become a Peer Reviewer for Title VI grants, you can click here.

As the Brandeis Center and many other organizations have long pointed out, these programs, which receive federal funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Opportunities Act (HEOA), are far from objective and often incorporate biased, anti-Israel programming as part of the curriculum. In January, the Brandeis Center, along with thirteen other national Jewish, educational and civil rights organizations, co-authored a letter to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, urging the Committee to amend Title VI of the HEOA and approve certain sections of Title VI of the PROSPER Act as adopted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which also seeks to reauthorize the HEOA.

Title VI of the HEOA provides federal funding to international studies and foreign language centers at universities nationwide. Enacted to advance national security and international relations interests, and requiring centers to “reflect diverse perspective and a wide range of views,” Title VI has fallen far short of its original goal. In reality, many of these centers conflict with these original aims by suppressing the academic freedom of students and faculty with contrarian views. This one-sided story telling is especially relevant when it comes to the Near Eastern Studies Centers’ teachings on Israel, which is frequently biased and often offers only an anti-Israel perspective.

Previously, in a 2014 Joint Statement, the Brandeis Center and 9 other concerned organizations authored a Joint Statement to Congress on the misuse of federal funding under Title VI. Also in 2014, the Brandeis Center authored a White Paper on “The Morass of Middle East Studies: Title VI of the Higher Education Act and Federally Funded Area Studies.” This analysis of Middle East Studies programs yielded several important findings, including that “no proper complaint-resolution procedure exists to ensure compliance with the HEOA’s key Diverse Perspectives requirement.” Building on this analysis, the Brandeis Center posited several recommendations to universities, the Department of Education, and Congress. Included in these recommendations was for the Department of Education to ensure compliance by strictly evaluating each application of Title VI funding and periodically monitoring each program.

The PROSPER Act, which has already made it out of the House Committee, offers several marked improvements to Title VI funding process that would substantially cut down on these centers’ pernicious anti-Israel rhetoric. As both the House and Senate aim to amend the HEOA during its reauthorization, Congress has an opportunity to end Title VI’s discriminatory funding.

On Friday, May 11, Aviva Vogelstein, LDB’s Director of Legal Initiatives, has been invited to testify at a United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) Public Briefing, “In the Name of Hate: Examining the Federal Government’s Role in Responding to Hate Crimes.” At the Briefing, the Commission will examine best practices for local law enforcement on collecting and reporting data, and the role of the Education and Justice Departments in prosecution and prevention of these heinous acts. Commissioners will hear from local law enforcement and federal government officials, experts, academics, advocates, and survivors of hate. Vogelstein will testify on a panel with other civil rights legal scholars and experts. Testimony from this briefing will form an integral basis for the Commission’s subsequent report to Congress, the President, and the American people regarding the state of hate crimes and bias-related incidents across the nation. For more information on the Briefing, visit: http://www.usccr.gov/press/2018/05-11-PR-Sunshine-Act-Notice.pdf.

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Brandeis Center Calls for Immediate Federal Action In Testimony Before U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Washington, D.C., May 11:  Testifying as an expert witness before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) today urged the federal government to take immediate action to stem increasing religious bullying and harassment in U.S. schools.

“Religiously-motivated harassment and bullying are on the rise across our country, and are infiltrating our nation’s schools,” testified Aviva Vogelstein, LDB’s director of legal initiatives, at the Commission’s briefing entitled, In the Name of Hate: Examining the Federal Government’s Role in Preventing Hate Crimes.  “Until recently, though, this problem has been almost entirely ignored by the federal government.  It is unconscionable that this category of hate, averaging approximately 30 incidents per school day, 150 incidents per school week, and 602 incidents per school month, has, up until now, been largely unaccounted for and unaddressed.”

According to a 2014 Sikh Coalition report, over half of Sikh children in the U.S. said they were bullied in school, and over two-thirds, or 67% report being bullied if they were wearing a turban.  A February ADL report found that anti-Semitic incidents in K-12 schools and on college campuses nearly doubled over 2016.  A Brandeis Center/Trinity College study found that 54% of Jewish college students reported experiencing or witnessing anti-Semitism in 2014. And a U.S. Department of Education report, released just last month, which at the urging of the Brandeis Center, for the first time, included statistics on religiously-motivated bullying and harassment, found an alarming 10,848 incidents based on religion in 2015-2016.

Recent incidents include: A Muslim student was spit on, called a “Muslim b*tch” and an attempt was made to pull off her hijab at a New York City public school; a 14-year-old Sikh boy wearing a turban in Washington State was punched and knocked down by a classmate; at a Florida school, a classmate drew a swastika and a fake concentration camp number on a Jewish student’s arm; in New York, a Jewish boy was verbally harassed, pinned to the ground and had hot wax poured on his skin; in Maryland, two Jewish students were followed by two suspects shouting, “F*** the Jews” and then punched in the face; and in San Diego a man assaulted a female Muslim student by grabbing her headscarf and choking her with it, calling her a terrorist and telling her to “Get out of this country.”

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, bullying “is linked to many negative outcomes including impacts on mental health, substance use, and suicide.”  Kids who are bullied can experience negative physical, school, and mental health issues, and kids who bully others can engage in violent and other risky behaviors into adulthood.

For many years, the Brandeis Center has been pushing the federal government to gather data on hate crimes against religious minorities, with a particular emphasis on anti-Sikh, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish discrimination.  Brandeis Center Director, Kenneth L. Marcus, has testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about this issue.

“Our government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to religious bullying taking place in our nation’s schools.  Congress and the President must address the longstanding problem of religious hate crimes, harassment, and bullying. We should all have known about this problem for quite some time.  But if any question remained, the Department of Education’s staggering findings of 10,000 incidents in one year provides us with 10,000 indisputable reasons to act.  Religious harassment and bullying in our schools is a major problem that the federal government is inexplicably failing to address.  We need better data, and we need serious and immediate action,” added Vogelstein.

The Brandeis Center recommended three steps to combat religiously-motivated bullying and harassment.  First, Congress must enact legislation to protect students from religious-based harassment. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, or national origin” does not protect students from harassment based on religion, absent an ethnic or ancestral component.  Congress should amend existing legislation or pass a stand alone bill to address this omission.  Second, the Department of Education should issue clear guidelines as to what is prohibited and what is permitted under Title VI.  Lastly, the Department of Education’s agreement to collect data is important but the way the data is currently collected is not useful beyond general figures.  The Department of Education should collect detailed information on individual religions, the specific types of harassment and bullying, locations where incidents are occurring and the context behind each incident.  More and detailed information is required to properly identify trends and develop effective strategies for addressing past incidents and preventing future ones.

Jackson Richman

The National Discource

Schools across the United States have consisted of an alarming number of incidents related to religiously-motivated bullying and similar abuse.

According to a Department of Education study last month, there were 10,848 incidents related to religion during the 2015-2016 academic year.

It was the first time the department included this kind of statistic in its annual Civil Rights Data Collection survey, thanks to a push from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. Religion-based bullying constituted 8 percent of allegations of harassment or bullying by basis, preceded by disability, sexual orientation, race, and sex.

“This problem has been almost entirely ignored until very recently,” Aviva Vogelstein, LDB’s director of legal initiatives, testified in front of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Friday. “Until last month, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) did not even collect data on religiously- motivated harassment and bullying, although it amassed data on sex, race, color, national origin, and disability.”

Vogelstein added, “It is unconscionable that this category of hate, averaging approximately 30 incidents per school day, 150 incidents per school week, and 602 incidents per school month, has, up until now, been largely unaccounted for and unaddressed.”

She added that the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 only protects students based on “race, color, or national origin,” and does not cover those based on religious discrimination.

Reported examples of religiously-based bullying include two Jewish Towson University students, who were members of a Jewish campus fraternity, walking to a house last month when they were followed by two fellow students shouting, “F**k the Jews” and calling them an ethnic slur. The suspects then followed the victims to the front of the house and began punching one of the victims in the face.

Another includes a Muslim student assaulted at a New York City public school in May 2017. The assailant spat on her, called her a “Muslim b*tch,” and attempted to pull off her hijab.

Months later, in Washington State, a 14-year-old Sikh boy wearing a turban was punched and knockeddown by a classmate nearby his high school.

“With over ten-thousand incidents of religious hate in our schools, the federal government must act,”  Vogelstein said. “Our government cannot continue turning a blind-eye to incidents such as choking a Muslim girl with her hijab, punching a Sikh boy wearing a turban, and burning a Jewish boy with hot wax.”

“If any question remained, the Department of Education’s staggering findings of 10,000 incidents in one year provides us with 10,000 indisputable reasons to act,” Vogelstein added. “Religious harassment and bullying in our schools is a major problem that the federal government is inexplicably failing to address. We need better data, and we need serious and immediate action.”

Algemeiner

The director of legal initiatives at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law testifies before the US Commission on Civil Rights, May 11, 2018. Photo: C-SPAN.

A leading Jewish human rights group called on the federal government on Friday to take action against religiously-motivated bullying in American schools.

Aviva Vogelstein, director of legal initiatives at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told the US Commission on Civil Rights that Congress and the Department of Education have thus far failed to adequately address “the longstanding problem” of hate directed at Jewish, Sikh, Muslim, and other students.

Citing data from the 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection survey, Vogelstein noted in her written testimony that “an alarming 10,848 incidents, 8% of the total incidents … were harassment or bullying based on religion.”

She pointed out that existing federal laws — including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which covers “race, color, or national origin” — do not protect students from religious discrimination, at a time when such attacks are on the rise.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish civil rights group, reported “that antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools and on college campuses in 2017 nearly doubled over 2016,” Vogelstein observed. “College campuses saw a total of 204 antisemitic incidents in 2017 as reported to the ADL, compared to 108 in 2016 — an 89% increase.”

Likewise, a report issued by the South Asian Americans Leading Together advocacy group “found a total of 302 incidents of hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric against those who identify or are perceived as South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab between [2016 and 2017], a 45% increase from their data the previous year.” The majority of incidents were anti-Muslim, with over one in four involving students and youth.

Vogelstein illustrated her point by recounting several recent occasions when students were targeted based on their religious identity.

These include a March 2017 incident, during which a student in Florida drew “a swastika and a fake concentration camp number on a Jewish student’s arm,” she wrote. “The Jewish student also suffered from ongoing antisemitic harassment and bullying, including having pennies thrown at him, Holocaust ‘jokes’ made at his expense, and being handed printouts of Holocaust memes.”

In May 2017, “a Muslim student was assaulted at a New York City public school,” Vogelstein added. “The assailant spit on her, called her a ‘Muslim b*tch’ and attempted to pull off her hijab.”

Later that year, in November, a Jewish boy at a New York school “was verbally harassed, pinned to the ground and had hot wax poured on his skin.”

That same month, in Washington State, “a 14-year-old Sikh boy wearing a turban was punched and knocked down by his classmate less than a block outside of his high school.”

To address such incidents, Vogelstein urged Congress to either pass a new bill or amend existing legislation to cover cases of religiously-motivated hate.

She also called for the matter to be addressed by the Department of Education, which she indicated had “made incremental improvements to protect students based on religion.”

In 2014, then-Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kenneth Marcus wrote a Dear Colleague Letter extending Title VI protection to members of groups that “exhibit both ethnic and religious characteristics, such as Arab Muslims, Jewish Americans and Sikhs.”

The informal guidance issued by Marcus — founder of the Brandeis Center and current nominee to the post of assistant secretary at the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) — was backed up by both the Department of Justice and the Department of Education in 2010. However, not much action has come of it yet, Vogelstein argued.

“For example, OCR has not found a single violation in a campus anti-Semitism case despite the high volume of incidents we know exist,” she noted, attributing this in part to a lack of clarity. “By properly defining what discrimination based on ethnicity or ancestry entails, OCR could more easily identify, address, and prevent such incidents from recurring.”

The guidance should also stress that anti-discrimination policies “should not be construed in ways that will limit freedom of speech.”

Vogelstein also called on the OCR to categorize the information it presents in its Civil Rights Data Collection survey by individual religion, and gather more information on each incident — which could be useful for differentiating between violent assault and verbal harassment, for instance.

“With over ten thousand incidents of religious hate in our schools, the federal government must act,” she stressed. “Our government cannot continue turning a blind-eye to incidents such as choking a Muslim girl with her hijab, punching a Sikh boy wearing a turban, and burning a Jewish boy with hot wax.”