Download PDF Today, the Louis D. Brandeis Center praised the Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism in the House of Representatives for its briefing on Tuesday, November 3, on campus anti-Semitism. The Taskforce was launched earlier this year in response to rising global anti-Semitism and has already spearheaded several initiatives, including the recent H. Res. 354, which addresses recent violent anti-Semitic attacks in Europe and encourages cooperation between the U.S. and European governments and involvement of Jewish community groups in security efforts. LDB president Kenneth L. Marcus said after the event, “We applaud the Taskforce for their attention to the resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world as well as on some of our own college and university campuses.” The Taskforce is co-chaired by Reps. Nita Lowey (D-NY), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Kay Granger (R-TX), and Steve Israel (D-NY). Their attention to the problem of anti-Semitism on US college campuses is especially important at a time when, according to the recent LDB-Trinity College report, 54% of Jewish students have experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism on their college campuses during the last academic year. Despite this statistic, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights still has not found any policy violations under its policy statement to include discrimination against Jewish students under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The event focused on the current state of anti-Semitism on college campuses across the United States, the proliferation of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus, and the ways in which the BDS movement may evolve into anti-Semitic demonstrations or create hostile environments for Jewish students. Three panelists testified as part of the roundtable discussion: LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus; former Congressman Eric Fingerhut, the President and CEO of Hillel International; and Melanie Goldberg, a former Brooklyn College student and LDB client, and founding president of the LDB chapter at Cardozo Law. Mr. Marcus, President and General Counsel of LDB, founded LDB in 2011 to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism in American higher education. LDB’s mission is to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. He publishes frequently in academic journals and popular publications on the topic of anti-Semitism. Mr. Marcus has provided updates to the Task Force on the current conditions on American campuses and has given them specific public policy recommendations for how Congress and the executive branch can best address the resurgence of campus anti-Semitism. Ms. Goldberg became involved in pro-Israel activism on her undergraduate campus starting in her freshman year, when her professor skipped over a lesson about the Holocaust, claiming people already knew enough about it. As a consequence of her pro-Israel activism, she endured threats and cyber-bullying, and in her senior year she was wrongfully ejected from a pro-BDS event hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) because she and other Jewish students were holding pro-Israel fact sheets. After LDB represented her regarding this incident, Ms. Goldberg continued her relationship with LDB and founded the Cardozo Law’s LDB chapter.