Susan Snyder
September 13,2018
Philly.com

As reports of anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses rise, the U.S. Department of Education’s office of civil rights has reopened a probe, previously closed under President Barack Obama’s administration, of 2011 allegations that Rutgers University discriminated against Jewish students, the New York Times reported.

Rutgers said in a statement Wednesday morning that it hadn’t been notified of the revived investigation, but pledged full cooperation.

“There is no place for anti-Semitism or any form of religious intolerance at Rutgers,” the school said.

News of the probe comes amid reports of rising anti-Semitism on college campuses in recent years and increased tensions between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups on campus, and as the Trump administration increasingly has signaled more support for Israel.

A bill was introduced in Congress earlier this year targeting anti-Semitism, given the increasing incidents on college campuses, and encouraging the Education Department’s office of civil rights to consider when anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism — a step that some have blasted as treading on free-speech rights.

Nationally, from 2016 to 2017, anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses increased 89 percent to 204, said Nancy Baron-Baer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Philadelphia office. There also has been a spike in white supremacist activity; locally over the last two years, the league has noted white supremacist recruitment at Rutgers, Temple, the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, Drexel, Stockton, and Princeton, she said.

“There’s no question on the white supremacist aspect that they have felt empowered over the last 18 months,” she said. “Our government has not adequately called out the behavior of haters within our country, and when people see that kind of behavior being normalized, then the thoughts they may have had in private become actions they feel they can take in public.”

Anti-Semitism, she said, has been around for a long time and is “the canary in the coal mine.”

“It is the first place that people go when we enter a period of increased bias and prejudice,” she said.

Jonathan Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was pleased that the Education Department was acting to protect Jewish students — and all students — on campus.

He also gave Rutgers a nod for taking steps to create a more hospitable environment and said the actions that the university took following the 2011 incident were deemed adequate by his New York office at that time.

The Rutgers case stems from a 2011 complaint filed by the Zionist Organization of America alleging that a pro-Palestinian group holding an event on campus charged Jewish students and pro-Israel supporters an admission fee. The group maintained that it charged fees to cover “university imposed” security costs, which arose after Jewish students staged protests of the event, according to Palestine Legal, a Palestinian rights group.

The Education Department’s office of civil rights, in dismissing the complaint in 2014, said it found no indication that Jewish students or others were selectively charged fees.

“OCR determined that the university promptly investigated the event after it occurred,” the office said. “OCR further determined that the evidence failed to substantiate any specific incidents in which the fee requirement was imposed unequally on Jewish or non-Jewish attendees, based on national origin.”

Neither the Education Department nor the Zionist Organization of America returned calls seeking comment Wednesday.

The new probe was reopened under Kenneth L. Marcus, who became assistant secretary of education for civil rights in the Education Department in June. Marcus, who previously worked for the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has written about anti-Semitism and Jewish identity.

The decision didn’t sit well with David Hughes, a Rutgers anthropology professor and vice president of the faculty union.

“We’re feeling that this is a very unfair way to treat our institution,” he said. “We’re also feeling that it doesn’t make sense.”

He referred to the Times report that said the federal government appears to be including opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitic. Criticism of a state is legitimate, he said.

In 2016, the union backed Jasbir Puar, an associate professor of women’s and gender studies, after she faced death threats and calls for her firing for a speech at Vassar College in which she said the Israeli Defense Forces used cruel tactics against Palestin­ian civilians, according to an account in the student newspaper.

“We cannot operate as scholars and teachers, and students can’t learn, in a political environment wherein criticism of one state is considered illegitimate,” Hughes said.

Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center, which supports the federal legislation and use of the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, countered that criticism of Israel at times does constitute discrimination and noted that pro-Israel groups on the nation’s campuses have been singled out and excluded.

“You can criticize specific policies,” said Lewin, who applauded the Education Department’s decision to reopen the Rutgers case. “That’s legitimate. If you are going to suggest that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel in its creation is a racist endeavor, that Israel has no right to a Jewish state, that is anti-Semitic.”

Hughes, who noted that he is Jewish, acknowledged that anti-Semitism is increasing, but said it’s not coming from college campuses or professors.

“It’s coming from the people who marched on the campus in Charlottesville,” he said, referring to the white supremacist march at the University of Virginia last year that erupted in violence.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia-based nonprofit civil-liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) issued a statement expressing disappointment with the Education Department’s decision to reopen the Rutgers investigation “utilizing a definition of anti-Semitism that threatens speech protected by the First Amendment.”

The organization’s statement said the definition’s “inherent vagueness allows for the investigation and punishment of core political speech. This is an unacceptable result.”

Original Article

By Maria Danilova | AP
September 13, 2018
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Education Department has reopened an old discrimination case against Rutgers University and is revisiting what constitutes anti-Semitism.

The case stems from a 2011 event sponsored at Rutgers by an outside organization that was accused of charging Jewish attendees for admission while allowing others in for free.

The initial investigation was closed by the department under President Barack Obama’s administration in 2014. But the Zionist Group of America says the department has reopened the case based on its appeal.

In a letter to the group, Kenneth Marcus, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, cites a broad definition of anti-Semitism that includes, among other things, “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”

That language was adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the United States and European Union states, and was embraced by the State Department under the Obama administration.

In his letter, Marcus also said discrimination “on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics” would violate federal discrimination laws and falls under the agency’s description. The statement appears to indicate that the department is considering anti-Semitism as discrimination against an ethnic group, not a religious one.

“It’s really a breakthrough,” said Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Group of America. “Israel bashing and anti-Zionism can cross a line when it becomes anti-Semitism.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, welcomed the decision, saying that the number of anti-Semitic incidents on American college campuses nearly doubled, to 204 in 2017, compared to 108 the prior year. Greenblatt cited the findings of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which concluded in 2006 that many anti-Semitic incidents on campuses have been couched as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist.

“On many campuses, anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist propaganda has been disseminated that includes traditional anti-Semitic elements, including age-old anti-Jewish stereotypes and defamation,” the commission said in a report.

“Anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism plain and simple,” Greenblatt said.

The definition cited by Marcus says, “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” Among the examples of how anti-Semitism may be played out in contemporary life is “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide than to the interests of their own nations.”

But critics say the definition is too vague and will limit freedom of speech on campus.

“It conflates anti-Semitism with any criticism really of Israel and Israel’s policy toward Palestinians,” said Judith Tucker, a professor at Georgetown University and president of the Middle East Studies Association. “If this kind of reasoning is allowed to move forward, it will have a chilling effect on any open discussion of Israel, of Palestinian rights, of any critical issues in the Middle East region that need to be discussed.”

Marcus had previously served as president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, whose mission “is to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people” and combat anti-Semitism on university campuses.

Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, dismissed the definition used by Marcus as “intolerable, and it’s a clear violation of our First Amendment rights.

“Anything that might offend a pro-Israel Jewish student because they deem it to be demonizing Israel can now be considered anti-Semitic and be investigated by the Department of Education and universities can be sanctioned as a result.”

Education Department press secretary Liz Hill said the agency’s civil rights arm is not responsible for investigating religious discrimination, but it “does aggressively enforce” Title VI, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin.

“The facts in the Rutgers case, many of which were disregarded by the previous administration, are troubling,” Hill said in a statement. “Discrimination motivated by anti-Semitism may be prohibited under Title VI.” She said the Office of Civil Rights will determine that on a case-by-case basis.

A Rutgers University spokesman said it has not yet been formally notified of the reopening of the case, but it will cooperate with the department.

Original Article

Becket Adams
Sept. 13, 2018
Washington Examiner

Speaking truth to power in the age of Trump apparently means downplaying anti-Semitism.

At least, that’s the takeaway from an indefensibly ugly article published this week by the New York Times.

In a story titled “ Education Dept. Reopens Rutgers Case Charging Discrimination Against Jewish Students,” the article’s author goes to great lengths to characterize Kenneth Marcus, who heads the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, as a puppet of Jewish influence. The article declares him a “longtime opponent of Palestinian rights causes.” The story also downplays the anti-Semitic elements of certain campus groups.

The author calls Marcus’ decision to review the Rutgers complaint “not as a case of religious freedom but as possible discrimination against an ethnic group,” meaning that the Education Department has now “embraced Judaism as an ethnicity” and “adopted a hotly contested definition of anti-Semitism.”

What the author doesn’t mention is that this supposedly “hotly contested” definition of anti-Semitism follows the working definition laid out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This “hotly contested” working definition includes “hotly contested” examples such as, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” and, “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

The Times report also refers to the Rutgers student organization Belief Awareness Knowledge and Action merely as a “liberal, pro-Palestinian group.” This is an awfully generous description of a group whose 2010 anti-Israel blockade fundraiser helped fund the Turkey-based organization Insani Yardim Vakfi, “which has long been associated with support for Hamas-led terrorist activities,” as noted by Commentary’s Noah Rothman.

Then there’s this line in the Times report: “Mr. Marcus … was tapped to lead the Office for Civil Rights from his job leading the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a nonprofit advocacy organization that Mr. Marcus used to pressure campuses to squelch anti-Israel speech and activities.”

There is no evidence presented in the story to back the claim that Marcus used the Center for Human Rights Under Law to “squelch” anti-Israel speech. The author merely hangs the allegation out there as if it were fact.

The Times report also mentions frequent campus speaker Omar Barghouti, who founded the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. The story does not mention that he is a proponent of a one-state solution in Israel (or perhaps we should call it Palestine), which he says can happen only after the “ de-zionization” of Israel as the Jewish state.

And so on and so forth. This article is almost as bad as the paper’s 2015 “ Jew Tracker,” which, funnily enough, was edited by the same Times staffer.

The real problem here is that the article obviously doesn’t take anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses seriously. The article acts as if the problem were merely a right-wing bogeyman, scoffing at the very real bigotry of anti-Israel activists.

Honestly, the article’s author is so dedicated to her narrative that she goes so far as to say that the definition of anti-Semitism shared by both the Education Department and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is “hotly contested.” By whom? Jeremy Corbyn?

Original Article