Edwin Black
Jewish Journal

It began as yet another frustrating example of a university refusing to take swift action in a case of aggressive disruption of a pro-Israel event. The belligerent shutdown of a Students Supporting Israel panel discussion occurred at UCLA on May 17, 2018. That incident has skyrocketed to become the most important potential prosecution of anti-Israel campus disruption in the nation since the Irvine 11. A top Los Angeles City attorney is now actively reviewing the file of evidence and police complaints for possible prosecution under state laws that criminalize the disruption of public meetings, as well as other related statutes.

In the now well-known case, on May 17, Students Supporting Israel gathered in a UCLA function room for a panel discussion titled Indigenous Peoples Unite. Disruptors–suddenly and loudly–stormed into the room mid-session. One person tore down the students’ flag, demonstratively pulled away a desk placard, and cursed threateningly close to the face of a panelist. With bullhorns, whistles, staged dancing, and slogan shouting, the event was shut down. The disruption and nose-to-nose intimidation of the students attending the SSI event was documented in a video, beginning at minute 41.

Although the UCLA administration publicly promised a referral to prosecutors, no such action was taken against the various protestors — both students and non-students, because UCLA campus police were awaiting formal complaints by the intimidated students. Only after such a formal police report is filed do police investigate and determine if a referral to prosecutors is called for. Then, prosecutors weigh the evidence and decide if prosecution is warranted. All students contacted by this reporter stated they did not know they were entitled to make a police report.

After media revelations about UCLA’s inaction, two Jewish groups sprang into action–the Louis D. Brandeis Center, headed by constitutional attorney Alyza Lewin, and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Center, headed by attorney Yael Lerman. The Washington-based Brandeis Center flew its attorney, Aviva Vogelstein, to Los Angeles. Together, Lerman and Vogelstein personally escorted numerous students as well as one member of the community into the UCLA police department where they all filed formal written and verbal complaints.

One such police complaint, obtained by this reporter, was filed by a community member in the room during the event, Laura Leve Cohen, a major donor to the UCLA’s Center for Jewish Studies, where she serves as an advisory board member. Cohen’s complaint opens with the words: “Have you ever been confronted by an angry mob and not able to leave? I hadn’t.  Until Thursday evening, May 17th, 2018 … Midway through the presentation, an angry, out-of-control mob stormed into the classroom, shouting and chanting. Simply put, we were trapped by a crowd of student protestors, surrounded on all sides, and unable to leave the room.”

After processing the collection of complaints, the UCLA police department opened Case 18-1206, assigning it to one of its seasoned detectives, Selby Arsena. Detective Arsena has racked up a many-years-long track record investigating campus violence. One of these included a 2011 stabbing case that resulted in a 12-year prison sentence.

In mid-July, Arsena delivered his file to Los Angeles City prosecutors at their Pacific Branch, located in a curved building also known as “the Airport Courthouse,” near Los Angeles International Airport. Quickly, the case was assigned to the office’s assistant supervising attorney, Spencer Hart, a highly-regarded prosecutor with experience in high-profile cases. One notable Hart prosecution involved jail time for a student found guilty false imprisonment at UCLA. A source in the prosecutor’s office characterized Hart’s record of successful prosecutions as one which earned “the No. 2 position in the office.”

Both Arsena and Hart declined to comment for this article.

Just a few days after case 18-206 landed on Hart’s desk, he was emailed a seven-page letter, submitted jointly by the Brandeis Center and the StandWithUs legal center, a copy of which was obtained by this reporter. The joint letter was a polished and detailed review of the evidence, legal precedent, and case law.

“There is strong California precedent to prosecute and convict disruptors who violate criminal law in their attempt to silence speakers on campus,” the letter asserted. It continued, “In a similar fact pattern in 2011, a jury convicted ten student members of the Muslim Student Union of a misdemeanor for disrupting former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, in a coordinated effort at a public event at the University of California-Irvine (“UC Irvine”) … [later] upheld by a panel of three Orange County Superior Court judges. We believe that the facts in the case before you, Criminal Report #18-1206, merit similar prosecution and would result in similar convictions.”

The Brandeis-SWU letter specified the alleged potential criminal violations Brandeis and SWU had previously itemized in a letter to UCLA administrators: “§ 403 – disturbance of an assembly or meeting, § 415 – disturbing the peace; § 182 – criminal conspiracy to do the aforementioned’” and added two more based on additional research: “§ 242 – battery; § 664 – unsuccessful attempt to commit battery; and § 594 – vandalism.” The letter is jointly signed by Lewin, Vogelstein, and Lerman, the three of which have become the most active in the effort to see the matter prosecuted.

Lewin commented: “This disruption was egregious and unlawfuland must be properly prosecuted.”

While Lewin, Vogelstein, and Lerman have led the effort to have police reports filed and argued for prosecution, numerous Jewish and pro-Israel organizations have voiced support for the idea. Just days after the disruption, the Zionist Organization of America’s legal department sent a letter to UCLA insisting that a violation of state criminal law was clear.

If prosecutions and convictions result from the May 17 UCLA event shut-down disruption, it is expected to help define the criminal limits of such disruptions at campuses across the nation.

Aviva Vogelstein
The Hill

Choking a Muslim student with her hijab. Punching a Sikh boy wearing a turban. Burning a Jewish boy with hot wax. A just-released Department of Education report found that an alarming 10,848 incidents of religiously-motivated bullying and harassment took place in U.S. public schools during 2015-16. That’s approximately 30 incidents per school day, 150 per school week and 602 per school month. Religiously-motivated hate crimes have spiked across our country, and we now know that religiously-motivated harassment and bullying are infiltrating our nation’s schools. Our federal government, however, is not doing enough about it.

A 2018 report by South Asian Americans Leading Together found that over a quarter of incidents of reported hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric against South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab individuals in November 2016-November 2017 involved students and youth. A 2014 report by the Sikh Coalition found that over half of Sikh children in the U.S. said they were bullied in school, and 67 percent reported being bullied if wearing a turban. And the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that anti-Semitic incidents in K-12 schools and on college campuses nearly doubled last year.

Read More

Edwin Black
Jewish Journal

June 14, 2018

Justin Feldman after filing police report 6-11-18. Photo courtesy of StandWithUs

Criminal complaints are now being filed by students following the belligerent disruption of a May 17, 2018 Students Supporting Israel [SSI] event at University of California Los Angeles. At least a half-dozen students announced they would visit the UCLA police department to file formal complaints reporting criminal disruption of a meeting, as well as disturbing the peace and conspiracy.

The move follows media disclosures that the UCLA was reneging on the public pledge by two chancellors in the Daily Bruin —bolstered by a statement for the record by a university spokesman — to refer the belligerent May 17 incident to prosecutors.

The disruption and nose-to-nose intimidation of the students attending the May 17 SSI event at UCLA was documented in a video, beginning at minute 41. Disruptors suddenly and loudly stormed into the room mid-session. One person tore down a flag, demonstratively pulled away a desk placard, and cursed threateningly close to the face of a panelist. With bullhorns, whistles, staged dancing, and slogan shouting, the event was shut down.

The Louis Brandeis D. Center, led by attorney Alyza Lewin, along with Director of Legal Initiatives Aviva Vogelstein and three law students in the UCLA Brandeis chapter, dispatched a letter to the university asserting that the disruption crossed the line into misdemeanor violations of the California criminal code. They cited Title 11, section 403 (which covers deliberate disruption of a public meeting —successfully used to convict the so-called Irvine 11), section 415 (which covers malicious disturbance of the peace), and section 182 (which forbids any conspiracy to violate the other sections).

At the same time, two UCLA chancellors, Jerry Kang and Monroe Gorden, penned an official denunciation of the incident that was published in the Daily Bruin campus newspaper. Their statement promised, “For those outsiders who disrupted the event, we will refer all evidence of wrongdoing to local prosecutors to determine whether they have broken the law.”  Bolstering the chancellors, university spokesman Tad Tamberg confirmed, “the off-campus people who have been identified … have been arrested previously and are known to the police here and have been referred to the prosecutor’s office.” He added, that a proper police investigation had already been done. “You don’t send something to the prosecutor’s office without first investigating it,” he stated. The involved UCLA students were to be referred to university discipline rather than prosecutors, the university stated.

It was not clear why UCLA students, who potentially broke the law, would not receive the same referral to prosecutors as outsiders for the same conduct.

The case then took a strange and unexplained twist. Three weeks after the event, in an email, Tamberg clarified, “There were no arrests, nor did anyone file a police report or complaint regarding the May 17 disruption, hence there was no police investigation.” Tamberg explained his prior assurance about a referral to prosecutors actually involved the disruption of an earlier, completely unrelated February 26, 2018 event with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

Prosecutors and police assert that without the filing of actual police complaints, no investigation or referral to the prosecutor can take place. None of the disrupted students contacted said they had filed a report, with two saying they did not even know they had the right to file such a complaint. Hence, no action could be taken.

After the media disclosure, numerous students stepped forward to file complaints. The first was Justin Feldman, president of the SSI chapter at Santa Monica College, enrolled at UCLA for the fall semester. Feldman stated he feared for his personal safety during the incident. On June 11, Feldman, who had previously completed a StandWithUs [SWU] high school training program, appeared at the UCLA police department accompanied by Yael Lerman, SWU legal director, to formally file his complaint.

More than a few of the students harassed during the May 17 event were trepidatious about filing a police report. But, according to Lerman, the police made the whole process “comfortable,” acting “helpful and respectful.” After a short wait at the station, officers Robert Chavez and Lowell Rose escorted Feldman into a small room where his report was taken during an hour-long interview in what Lerman described as an “unrushed” session.

Lerman credited Feldman for his actions. “What Justin did in filing was critical in moving the process forward. The [UCLA] administration has known about this for weeks and has chosen not to move this forward. So now the students have to.”

After emerging from the police station, Feldman stated, “I feel empowered.” He added, “I feel it is so important for students to take matters into our own hands, and not leave them to bureaucratic measures.” Feldman stated that “most students simply do not know about the process and what measures can be taken to hold people accountable.” “Justin’s courage will serve to empower other students at universities across the country who will realize that students can help move justice forward when administrations can’t or won’t,” added Roz Rothstein, cofounder and CEO of StandWithUs.

A campus police spokesperson assured that the department would investigate all complaints in the matter. Feldman’s complaint is just the beginning. At press time, Alyza Lewin, COO of Louis D. Brandeis Center in Washington, D.C., had dispatched its director of legal initiatives, Aviva Vogelstein, and a law clerk to fly to Los Angeles to meet with numerous other students who are scheduled to file complaints. Law students in the UCLA Brandeis chapter will observe the process. The police currently are reviewing a list of 10 individuals who allegedly perpetrated the disruption, along with screen captures of their text messages and social media statements. One such message urged disruptors “to shut it down.”

Within 24 hours of Feldman’s complaint, UCLA confirmed that the matter would indeed be referred to prosecutors. “UCPD has reviewed the video of the May 17 disruption, and is investigating the information in the incident report for any new evidence about the disruption that it may contain,” stated university spokesman Tamberg. He added, “UCPD will forward the incident report to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.” A prosecutor has already been assigned. Tamberg stated UCPD “will discuss both the report and the video with the prosecuting attorney in July, when that person returns from leave.”

“This case is a turning point for all students across the country,” asserts SWU’s Rothstein. Lewin of the Brandeis Center agreed stating, “Students across the country now recognize the importance of promptly reporting incidents like these to the police.”

Atlanta Jewish Times
June 11, 2018

New Emory University School of Law graduate David Zev Rosenberg has a worldly awareness of the importance of tolerance.

The discussions at law school might seem as if they should be straightforward and by the book, but in a lecture hall of 100-plus law students, Rosenberg said, “every single person has an opinion.”

That can be overwhelming, but the 26-year-old said Emory helped him value and “understand other people’s perspectives, which translates into the law. It’s not always black and white.”

Understanding different perspectives supported his work as the president of the Emory chapter of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which launched on campus three years ago to counter anti-Semitism at the college. The center investigates incidents, provides free research and advocacy for victims of discrimination, and files legal complaints.

The purpose, Rosenberg said, is “fighting discrimination on campus.”

Coming from Long Island, N.Y., Rosenberg searched for his Jewish community the minute he arrived in Atlanta. He was a part of Emory Hillel but found that it consisted mostly of undergraduates; he was looking for people his age.

As an Orthodox Jew, he found his stride when he connected with Chabad of Toco Hills and “enjoyed Jewish life for the first time,” Rosenberg said.

He said Atlanta’s Jewish community is smaller and easier to break into than New York’s, and the Jewish population is “more welcoming in Atlanta. You could be who you wanted to be.”

He chose Emory for law school because he “wanted to go to a good school, close to a Jewish community.” He said the school “cares for their students.”

Still, he offered a warning to anyone considering law school that it is “quite difficult, but you shouldn’t give up.”

The people in Atlanta made his three years here better, Rosenberg said. “I love the way people are happy. I love the weather. It’s a very young community and very friendly place.”

Rosenberg has since moved back to New York to take the bar exam, the mandatory state test whose passage is required to get a license to practice law. The daunting exam requires constant study, and he said he is spending more time in the library now than he did throughout law school.

Until he takes the New York bar exam in two months, his future is in the books right in front of his face while he is “just trying to pass the bar.”

Rosenberg said he sees a shift in himself out of law school. “I try to think of things a bit more methodically, and I am a little more patient.”

He described himself in three words: “funny, serious, dedicated.”

After the bar exam, Rosenberg plans to take a welcome leave from the books and travel to Vietnam and Thailand for two weeks. He will teach English in Vietnam, though he does not know for which age group.

Traveling to immerse yourself in new cultures, Rosenberg said, is “getting out of your element. It is important to relate and talk to other people from other surroundings.”

Rosenberg is interested in practicing real estate law. He said it is “important to make sure contracts are written well … (and not) fight for the client.”

Bob Kellogg
One News Now
June 11, 2018

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at lowering the rising tide of anti-Semitism on campuses across the U.S.

The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, if enacted, would require the U.S. Department of Education to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. The State Department defines anti-Semitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

According to Alyza Lewin of the Louis D. Brandeis Center, a hindrance to prosecuting incidences of anti-Semitism has been knowing how to define it. The Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, she says, has never found a single violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“If there are anti-Semitic incidents that are reported for investigation to the Office of Civil Rights, then they would use Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to evaluate those complaints,” she explains. “… This law would give them a definition of anti-Semitism so that they could use that definition in their investigation.”

The U.S. Senate approved a similar bill in 2016 but the companion House bill was introduced too late in the term to pass. Lewin says the bill now before the House has also been reintroduced in the Senate.

“It’s been tweaked a little bit to address any of the First Amendment concerns,” she tells OneNewsNow. “And so our hope now is that this new bill that’s being introduced in both the House and Senate will be able to move forward.”

One of the Senate sponsors is Senator Tim Scott (R-South Carolina). His state recently became the first to pass legislation to fight anti-Semitism on campuses.

Edwin Black
Jewish Journal

Disruptions of pro-Israel events by anti-Israel groups continue to intensify into physical aggression and violence across campuses and even into the community. As a result, Jewish and pro-Israel groups have started to explore the criminal aspects of such incidents.

The invasion, disruption, and nose-to-nose intimidation of a May 17, 2018 Students Supporting Israel [SSI] event at the University of California, Los Angeles was one several red lines recently crossed for pro-Israel groups and many in the human rights community. The small UCLA gathering, dubbed “Indigenous Peoples Unite,” brought Kurdish, Armenian, and Israeli individuals to discuss their common bonds.

As shown in this video, beginning at minute 41, disruptors suddenly and loudly stormed into the room mid-session. One person grabbed a flag, demonstratively pulled away a desk placard, and threateningly cursed close to the face of a panelist. With bullhorns, whistles, staged dancing, and slogan shouting, intimidation brought the event to a halt.

The May 17, 2018 UCLA incident hit a nerve among some Jewish leaders. Previous Jewish and pro-Israel responses have long focused on formal requests for administrative relief, petitions, and public statements. Few of those efforts seem to have slowed the escalation of disruptive tactics. After the UCLA event, several Jewish and pro-Israel groups began considering responses based on Title 11 of California’s criminal code that might apply to such conduct—not as an exceptional response, as it was for the Irvine 11 who disrupted an Israeli diplomat’s speech, but as a new rule of thumb in California.

Title 11, Sec. 403 concerns disruption of public meetings. The statute reads: “Every person who, without authority of law, willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character … is guilty of a misdemeanor.” This was the very statute used to successfully prosecute and convict the so-called “Irvine 11,” who disrupted an Israeli diplomat in UC Irvine with mere shouts—much less severe than the physical intimidation seen at UCLA.

Title 11, Sec. 415 involves disturbing the peace. The statute calls for not more than 90 days jail time for “any person who maliciously and willfully disturbs another person by loud and unreasonable noise” and also “any person who uses offensive words in a public place which are inherently likely to provoke an immediate violent reaction.” The May 17, 2018 video documents that is what happened in this case.

Title 11, Sec. 182, a conspiracy statute, can be invoked when “two or more persons conspire to commit any crime.” A digital message marked “urgent,” a screen shot of which has been obtained by this reporter, was circulated via the “Arts & Activism Alliance” message group. The message urged disruptors “to protest Students Supporting Israel’s ‘Indigenous Peoples Unite’ event happening this evening. We are going to shut it down.”

Interviews with students attending the SSI rally reveal that several felt intimidated and even feared for their physical safety during the disruption. For example, one of the three panelists, SSI chapter president Hirmand Sarafian, confirmed that he felt physically threatened “throughout the whole thing, from the beginning to the end.” At one point when protestors were vehemently banging on the doors, Sarafian said, he felt “trapped.”On May 24, 2018, conscious of the potential criminal conduct which had unfolded on their campus, two UCLA chancellors, Jerry Kang and Monroe Gorden, penned an official denunciation of the incident which was published in the Daily Bruin campus newspaper. Kang is a highly regarded legal expert. The statement was clear: “the panelists and audience felt silenced and intimidated. Thankfully, no one was physically hurt.” Drawing a distinction between protest and intimidation, the chancellors asserted, “It is one thing to persuade through evidence and argument; it is quite another to interrupt with intimidation.” The chancellors promised, “For those outsiders who disrupted the event, we will refer all evidence of wrongdoing to local prosecutors to determine whether they have broken the law. For those who are members of our own community, clear transgressions of university policy will also be addressed appropriately.”

It was not clear why UCLA students who potentially broke the law would not receive the same referral to prosecutors as outsiders for the same conduct. Kang did not respond to a request for clarification.

At the same time as the UCLA chancellors were drafting their statement, three UCLA law students at the local chapter of the Louis D. Brandeis Center, a Washington D.C.-based human rights organization, were penning their own letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, specifying potential criminal conduct. Page 3 of their letter specifies: “The students and outside disruptors potentially violated various provisions of the California Penal Code, including but not limited to: § 403 – disturbance of an assembly or meeting, § 415 – disturbing the peace, and § 182 – criminal conspiracy to do the afore­mentioned.” The law students cited case law, and details of the disruption. They concluded, “It appears that all the required elements of a § 403 violation are met.”

The law students’ letter was reviewed and then co-signed by constitutional lawyer Alyza Lewin, now COO of the Brandeis Center. The letter was delivered to Chancellor Block on official Brandeis Center letterhead.

UCLA is not eager to discuss the matter. When contacted, University spokesman Tad Tamberg repeatedly ruled out any questions. But he did state, “the off-campus people who have been identified … have been arrested previously and are known to the police here and have been referred to the prosecutor’s office.” He added, that a proper police investigation was, in fact, done. “You don’t send something to the prosecutor’s office without first investigating it,” he stated.

But some three weeks after the public promises in the Daily Bruin, the confirmation by the University spokesman, and the Brandeis Center letter, no investigative or referral action has been taken.

To initiate a criminal referral, a complaint or police report must be filed with local police—that is the UCLA campus police. Only then do the police investigate. Only after any investigation will the police send their case to the city attorney for a decision on prosecution. None of the students contacted said they had filed a report, with two saying they did not even know they had the right to file such a complaint. The UCLA administration has not filed a complaint.

UCLA police confirm that no investigation has taken place, and no referral to the prosecutor has been made because no one has reported a complaint. Even though the UCLA police were present during the fracas and escorted the protestors out, campus police insist they cannot investigate without a formal complaint. The LA city prosecutor confirms that the May 17, 2018 disruption “is not one of the incidents that our office is currently evaluating for filing purposes.”

The contradiction between the public promise by the chancellors in the Daily Bruin and Tamberg’s assurance that “the off-campus people have been referred to the prosecutor’s office” in the face of police and prosecutor denials could not be explained.

But then, the case took a strange and unexplained twist. Tamberg issued a clarification. While no action has been taken on the May 17 disruption, UCLA police did forward the videotape of the May 17 event to the city prosecutor in connection with two previous unrelated cases, campus sources say.

When asked again whether the “referral” to the police and prosecutors had actually occurred, Tamberg clarified he was not referring to the May 17 SSI case, but to a separate incident on February 26, 2018, involving Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who appeared at UCLA and was briefly heckled by protestors who police forcibly removed and arrested. After the Mnuchin incident, the protestors were served with a “stay away” order, under Title 11, Sec 626.67 of the penal code which empowers university personnel to administratively demand non-students stay off campus. Jail time is prescribed for violators. Essentially, these are “campus bans” backed by the force of law. In this case, a banned student from the Mnuchin event returned for the March 5, 2018, appearance by former intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, convicted of espionage. One banned protestor was arrested on sight. While taking no action on the May 17 disruption against SSI, the university is using the May 17 video to bolster prosecution efforts on the Mnuchin case.

Tamberg, in an email, confirmed, “There were no arrests, nor did anyone file a police report or complaint regarding the May 17 disruption, hence there was no police investigation. However, UCLA PD shared video of the disruption with the L.A. city attorney, who is considering filing five misdemeanor charges against individuals from off campus who disrupted Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s talk at UCLA on Feb. 26. That incident resulted in a seven‐day stay away order against one of the off campus arrestees, who was subsequently rearrested when that person showed up at a talk by Chelsea Manning at UCLA on March 5. UCPD sent video of the May 17 disruption to the L.A. city attorney with the request that the city attorney consider the actions of May 17 in deciding whether to file charges concerning the previous incidents of Feb. 26 and March 5.”

Tamberg repeatedly declined to respond to questions about why the May 17 incident was not being investigated. UCLA police refused to answer further questions, referring all inquiries to Tamberg. From all appearances, police decisions are not being controlled solely by the police, but also by UCLA public relations. A senior UCLA police source explained, “we coordinate with them closely.”

Lewin at Brandeis Center insisted, “If there is a criminal violation, it should be investigated.”

While the attack against SSI has stalled, Jewish and pro-Israel organizations are increasingly turning to the criminal code in matters of extreme disruption.

When the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York staged its June 3, 2018 Celebrate Israel, “We had six people, each paired with a representative of the NYPD legal team,” says director Noam Gilboord. He added, “This was primarily for disruption.” In this case, he reports, “There were no major disruptions, no incidents, no arrests.” But Gilboord says, “All assaults, disruption, and violence should be reported to the proper authorities or law enforcement.” Other Jewish and pro-Israel organizations echoed that sentiment.

However, in the case of the May 17, 2018 UCLA incident, no prosecution is pending because no one has reported it to the police, neither the students nor the university.

By William Jacobson
Legal Insurrection

Kenneth Marcus has been confirmed as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education. In that capacity, he will lead the Civil Rights Office, which was scandalized during the Obama administration, particularly on the issue of campus due process.

The nomination had been opposed on a party-line vote, with Democrats siding with anti-Israel activist groups. See these posts for background:

• Ken Marcus, nominee to head DOE Civil Rights Office, finally to get floor vote
• Kenneth Marcus nomination to head DOE Office for Civil Rights passes Senate HELP Committee
• Action Alert: Anti-Israel Lobby intensifies campaign against nomination of anti-Semitism scholar Ken Marcus
• Trump appoints attorney who combats campus antisemitism to key civil rights post

Extremist anti-Israel groups kept up their opposition right until the vote:

Senator Lamar Alexander, Chair of the HELP Committee, issued this statement in support of the nomination:

Mr. President, if I may say one more thing about the vote that we will be having at 12:30—today the Senate is finally voting to confirm Ken Marcus, a well-qualified nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education.

I worked to get a time agreement for this vote because Mr. Marcus did not deserve to be the subject of the Democrats’ unreasonable and unnecessary obstructions and delays. One Senator can do that or two Senators. I want to thank Senator Murray from Washington and the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, for helping to bring these delays to a conclusion today.

For example, Mr. Marcus was nominated on October 30, 2017, 220 days ago. He has been pending on the floor since our committee approved his nomination on January 18, 140 days ago. To compare, President Obama’s two nominees to these position Russlynn Ali and Catherine Lhamon were confirmed in 45 and 52 days and both were confirmed by a voice vote.

That doesn’t mean every Republican supported these nominees, but it meant we knew students would be better served when the Department of Education had someone in place even if Republicans might disagree with that person. I would remind my colleagues that when President Obama proposed to have John King serve as acting secretary of education for a year, I went to him and said Mr. President, the country is better served and we’re better served if you send the nomination up and let us confirm Mr. King, even though we disagree with him. And the president did that and I made sure he was confirmed within a month.

That’s what should happen when a president makes nominations. So it’s time to confirm Mr. Marcus, give Secretary DeVos and our country an Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. Mr. Marcus has a deep understanding of civil rights law. He founded the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, served as staff director for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for four years, and has effectively served in this position before when he worked in the Department of Education under President George W. Bush.

He was delegated the authority of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. In that position he was in charge of enforcing civil rights laws such as Title IX reminding schools of their obligations, established in regulation to have in place Title IX coordinators and procedures when there was an alleged Title IX violation.

He enjoys wide support. 68 organizations signed letters supporting his nomination including Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world which had this to say, Mr. Marcus, “has been a long time champion for civil rights and for college students. We have worked personally with him on several campuses across the country in response to specific issues of bigotry and discrimination and we have found him to be extremely skilled and knowledgeable in civil rights laws.”

The Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Mr. Marcus will lead a very important office—the Office of Civil Rights has the responsibility of ensuring that Title IX and other civil rights laws and the protections they provide to all students are fully enforced.

When Mr. Marcus is confirmed he’ll get to work enforcing those laws so that all students feel safe at school. So I’m glad we’re having this vote today, Madam President. I support the nomination, and I urge my colleagues to support Mr. Marcus as well. I thank the chair and I yield the floor.

The final vote was party line, 50-46 (Not voting: Blumenthal, Coons, Duckworth & McCain)