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)

Elizabeth Harrington
Free Beacon

The Senate approved Kenneth Marcus, the Trump administration’s nomination to head the Department of Education’s civil rights office, after his nomination was delayed for nearly eight months.

The Senate confirmed Marcus on a party-line vote, 50 to 46. Marcus will serve as the assistant secretary for civil rights under the Department of Education, replacing Candice Jackson, who had been serving as acting head of the Office of Civil Rights since President Trump’s inauguration.

Marcus’s nomination lingered for 220 days, after delays from Senate Democrats. Marcus previously served in the Bush administration on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the Department of Education, and at Housing and Urban Development.

Marcus is also the president and founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing civil rights of the Jewish people. Anti-Israel groups vigorously opposed Marcus, who they attacked for leading the fight against the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel movement.

Marcus’s nomination was stalled as reports showed anti-Semitism had risen by 94 percent in U.S. schools.

All Democrats voted against his nomination, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who claim they oppose the BDS movement.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) first weighed Marcus’s nomination. During a meeting discussing the Marcus nomination, a senior Democratic aide to Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.), the ranking member of the committee, said the Democratic office does not “care about anti-Semitism.”

“We don’t care about anti-Semitism in this office,” Murray’s senior adviser told a former colleague of Marcus. “We care about transgenders, we care about blacks, we care about Hispanics, we care about gays, we care about lesbians, we care about the disabled.”

Schumer’s office said it was too busy to meet with pro-Israel activists who were lobbying for Marcus to be confirmed. At the time, he released a bill dealing with marijuana use.

Though nominated on Oct. 30, 2017, the committee did not approve Marcus until Jan. 18, 2018. In all, it took 220 days for Marcus to be confirmed.

“To compare, President Obama’s two nominees to this position, Russlynn Ali and Catherine Lhamon, were confirmed in 45 and 52 days, and both were confirmed by a voice vote,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), the chairman of the HELP committee, noted on Thursday shortly before Marcus was confirmed.

Alexander called out Democrats for stonewalling numerous Trump administration nominees, while Republicans gave deference to former President Barack Obama’s nominees, even if they disagreed with them.

“That doesn’t mean that every Republican supported these nominees, but it meant we knew that students would be better served when the Department of Education had a confirmed Civil Rights official in place, even if Republicans might disagree with that person,” Alexander said.

“Mr. Marcus has a deep understanding of civil rights law, he founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, he served as staff director for the Commission on Civil Rights for four years,” Alexander said. “He’s 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.”

Patty Murray said she voted against Marcus because the Republican nominee would not say he disagreed with the Republican president who nominated him.

“I want to thank this nominee, Kenneth Marcus, for his service over the years, and for his clear commitment to the goal of fighting discrimination on our college campuses, which is certainly an issue that the OCR will face in light of evidence of hateful rhetoric and violence occurring on our campuses and our schools,” Murray said. “I respect Mr. Marcus’s commitment, but right now, in this administration, it’s not enough. We are now just a bit more than 500 days into President Trump’s term, and when it comes to his record and his rhetoric on civil rights, I haven’t been surprised once.”

Murray then listed a series of what she described as offensive remarks made by President Trump, including, she said, “referring to immigrants as ‘animals.'” Trump was referring to violent members of the gang MS-13.

Murray’s remarks on the Senate floor also echoed the sentiments of her senior adviser, listing off the areas that her committee cares about, but not including anti-Semitism.

“I feel very confident in saying when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to the rights and safety of women, of people of color, or LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities, this president has purposely fanned the flames of racism, ableism, bigotry, and sexism, in ways that we have not seen in a generation,” she said. “And anyone who cares about civil rights in America should be able to point that out.”

“So, that is why I’m so disappointed that President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights could not answer one of my questions in this hearing,” Murray said. “When I asked Mr. Marcus to name a single example of something President Trump has said or done when it comes to discrimination or women’s rights or civil rights that he disagrees with, he couldn’t say one, not a single example. And that’s all I was looking for.”

Other Democrats, including Jeff Robbins, who was the U.S. delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in the Clinton administration, said Marcus is “eminently qualified” and was responsible for “energetically enforcing antidiscrimination measures.”

While serving as staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Marcus pledged the commission would “aggressively prosecute harassment” against students of all religions.

“[W]e must remain particularly attentive to the claims of students who may be targeted for harassment based on their membership in groups that exhibit both ethnic and religious characteristics, such as Arab Muslims, Jewish Americans, and Sikhs,” Marcus wrote.

By Elan Burman
Kol Habirah

June 7, 2018

Even at a university known for going the extra mile to support Jewish life on campus, the pragmatic concerns of serving several thousand students may sometimes conflict with the needs of a minority, like observant Jewish

students. Such was the case this year, when the University of Maryland, College Park’s graduation occurred over Shabbat and Shavuot. Not wanting students to be precluded from marking this important milestone in their lives, however, the University of Maryland (UMD), Maryland Hillel, and UMD Chabad collaborated to host an “alternate graduation.”

The ceremony took place in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on May 17. Fifty-five graduates and 250 family members gathered for the moving ceremony.

The evening opened with a beautiful rendition of “Hatikvah” and “The Star Spangled Banner” by two graduating seniors, Avi Eisenstein and Daniela Nagar. Alyza Lewin, a prominent attorney, delivered the keynote address. Lewin is renowned for litigating a Supreme Court case concerning the inclusion of “Jerusalem and Israel” on passports of U.S. nationals born in Jerusalem. She has also pursued several cases pertaining to religious freedoms. Lewin charged the students to stand up for injustice and use their voices.

Moshe Klein of Silver Spring, Maryland, spoke on behalf of the graduating class. He spoke of the importance of transcending boundaries of identity and allowing oneself to be challenged intellectually. Klein paid tribute to the University of Maryland, a public institution that enabled him to satiate his universalistic pursuit of knowledge while Maryland Hillel and Chabad simultaneously nurtured his particularistic identity as an observant student. Alyssa Gabay, a graduating senior from Merion Station, Pennsylvania, read a poem.

Rabbi Ari Israel, executive director of Maryland Hillel, and Rabbi Eli Backman of UMD Chabad also addressed the crowd. William Cohen, UMD’s associate provost and dean for undergraduate studies, presented the students with their diplomas. After the ceremony, nearly 200 people gathered at the Ben and Esther Rosenbloom Center for Jewish Life for a festive dinner.

The ceremony was an example of a way in which students can access the best of a public institution while preserving and practicing their individual religious identities. The Jewish community in College Park is testament to the efforts of the university administration and organizations like Hillel and Chabad, which partner to make such experiences possible.