Alyza Lewin - Brandeis Center

Cover story published 1/3/24 by Washington Jewish Week; Story by Braden Hamelin

Alyza Lewin, a longtime lawyer, is co-founder and partner at Lewin & Lewin, LLP, and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, where she advocates for religious liberty and the rights of the Jewish community. The Kesher Israel Congregation (The Georgetown Synagogue) member has also argued several important cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Zivotofsky v. Kerry (the “Jerusalem Passport” case), which eventually led to Americans born in Jerusalem having the ability to list Israel as their birth country on their U.S. passports.

What are the things that you do as an attorney and president of a law center?

I’m president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a partner in Lewin & Lewin as a father-daughter law partnership. So, my partner is my father … A lot of the work that we did, involved religious liberty … I realized that there’s a need to make sure that society recognizes that Jews are not just a religion — we’re people with a shared history and a shared heritage and a shared collective memory and shared ancestry — and that we have every right to live our lives, celebrating that history proudly. We have a right to fully engage in society without having to hide that part of who we are, that part of what defines us as the Jewish people. There’s a need for society to recognize that the laws in this country also protect Jews from this kind of harassment and discrimination which targets us on the basis of our shared ancestry.

How did you get involved in this line of legal work?

It was really baked into my DNA. I grew up in a family with a both a strong sense of Jewish identity and a strong passion for working to protect Jewish civil rights and protect the Jewish community. I grew up in a home where my father, Nathan Lewin, who is a litigator, always devoted a very significant portion of his professional time and expertise to trying to ensure that Jews in America could practice their faith freely and with pride. So, for example, my father’s argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court. They include the right to wear a yarmulke in the military and the right of Chabad to put up the large menorahs in the public square. My father and I have had a long partnership together for over 22 years.

Why is this work so meaningful to you?

My father is a Sugihara survivor. He and his parents fled Poland in 1939, but three of his grandparents perished in the Holocaust. I’ve always recognized that it’s good fortune or a bit of a miracle that I ended up being born in the United States with all the opportunity that has provided. Together with gratitude, I’ve always felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. I have watched and learned from my parents. I was raised to feel that if I’m blessed with opportunity, with skills and talents, then I want to be able to use those in some way to help support the Jewish people.

Can you tell me about your experiences with the “Jerusalem Passport” Supreme Court case?

That case taught me some of the most important life lessons … Lesson number one: It taught me to have the confidence to push myself outside my comfort zone. As I mentioned, my father had argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court, this was going to be my first. My father and the client encouraged me to do it, but I was not sure that I was ready to step into his shoes. I waited to make that decision until the last possible moment … In the end, we lost. The court ruled against us … Lesson number two: I learned to never ever give up because if you persevere, you can turn what may appear to be your greatest defeat into an amazing success. That is what happened here. Eighteen years after we filed our lawsuit (five years after the Supreme Court defeat), we got the policy changed and Ambassador [David] Friedman presented our client with the very first U.S. passport to officially list Israel as the place of birth for a US citizen born in Jerusalem … And lesson number three: We must always have faith. This case taught me that in our lifetime, we only see and witness a very small moment of time. If we are fortunate enough, we will live long enough to see the arc of history bend so that we’ll be able to understand that what in the moment may have appeared as defeat — is really the beginning of victory. When the Supreme Court ruled against us, it held that the President of the United States has the exclusive authority to recognize foreign sovereigns. That decision paved the way for President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the Golan Heights as being in Israel. I’m grateful that I lived long enough to see what I had thought was defeat be converted into victory.

What is your outlook on the future as we head into the New Year?

Sadly, right now at the end of this year, [there is] a tremendous demand for the services that we provide at the Brandeis Center. We’ve seen, especially with our focus on the university campuses, antisemitism is spreading like wildfire. And so, one of the things that we’re going to be working on in the coming year is growing the Brandeis Center to be able to address the dramatic increase in the demand for our services to try and ensure that every student and every faculty member and staff member on campus that’s experiencing antisemitic harassment and discrimination is given the support they need. And to try and better educate the administrators on those campuses to recognize and see the antisemitism and to take effective steps to address that harassment and discrimination so that the campuses will once again become truly safe welcoming spaces for everyone.

Published by The Wall Street Journal on 1/4/24; Story by Ray A. Smith and Lauren Weber

DEI programs have come under fire from many directions

The management philosophy known as DEI, which had gathered momentum since 2020, has been under siege over the past year amid a collision of legal, economic and geopolitical forces.

The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in colleges, removing the legal rationale buttressing many diversity programs. An expected slowdown in the economy prompted companies to cut jobs and financial support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. And the Israel-Hamas war and college presidents’ responses to antisemitism on campus led some to question whether DEI programs and the values behind them extended to all students.

This week brought the resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay, whose championing of diversity initiatives made her a target of conservative critics. Gay, Harvard’s first Black female president, had come under additional fire in recent weeks for allegations of plagiarism and for congressional testimony in which she and other college presidents struggled in their responses to questions about antisemitism on campuses.

Also this week, Texas became the second state, after Florida, to ban DEI initiatives at publicly funded colleges and universities. Texas A&M University had already announced in the fall that it closed its DEI office and reassigned the team’s staff members.

It isn’t clear whether the upheaval of the past year will have a broad and lasting impact on how companies and colleges approach diversity. Some DEI consultants say the scrutiny surrounding such efforts in academia could have a chilling effect on corporate diversity initiatives, emboldening critics to take them on. Others maintain that DEI is resilient.

“I do expect we’ll see activists targeting companies and leaders who have been outspoken on the importance of diversity and inclusion,” said Joelle Emerson, CEO of Paradigm, a provider of consulting services and analytic tools that has worked with organizations including American Express, Grubhub and the National Football League on their DEI efforts.

“In our work, we’ve already seen this start to happen. I’ve heard a number of leaders at Fortune 500 companies say that they’re planning to continue their diversity and inclusion efforts, but just plan to be quieter about what they’re doing.”

Affirmative action

The Supreme Court’s June decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions boosted efforts by conservative groups to fight initiatives in the corporate sphere designed to rectify imbalances in the workplace, from hiring targets to fellowship and internship programs reserved for people from underrepresented groups.

Since the high court’s decision, conservative activists have launched a string of legal challenges against companies, including Starbucks and Amazon, targeting DEI programs they say violate rules against race and sex discrimination by steering opportunities or funds to racial and ethnic minority groups. Some companies have made changes to diversity initiatives.

Comcast altered a small-business grant program to minority- or female-owned companies to make all small businesses eligible after the cable company was accused of violating the civil rights of white, male business owners.

Companies are largely maintaining their programs or making only small alterations to address the areas where they see the most potential legal or reputational risk, said Ishan Bhabha, an attorney at Jenner & Block and co-chair of the firm’s DEI Protection Task Force. “There’s less backing away than one might think and I’ve actually been surprised by it,” he said.

A principal aim of the conservative assault on DEI programs, he said, is to create the perception in the corporate world that the legal liability is broader than it actually is “so that companies back away voluntarily from programs that are completely legal and were totally uncontroversial even a couple of years ago.”

Corporate cuts

Demand for chief diversity officers surged after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked a wider examination of racial inequity at work. Diversity executives arrived with big mandates, healthy budgets and momentum on their side.

Many found resources and support from senior executives waned over time, and dropped off sharply after the Supreme Court decision and a slowdown in the economy that prompted companies to cut corporate staff. In some cases, DEI-related roles were among the first to be eliminated when companies pulled back on hiring broadly because these initiatives were often tied to recruiting.

Many chief diversity officers left their jobs and their teams dwindled. Nearly 30% of workers who began a diversity-related role after mid-2020 have left the field altogether, according to employment data provider Live Data Technologies.

The advancement of Black professionals has stalled as well. Recent data from McKinsey show promotion rates for Black staff have fallen back near 2019 levels.

“DEI is going to come under full-out attack in 2024, no holds barred,” said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., the CEO of SHRM, an association for human resource managers, at a December breakfast with journalists in New York City.

The organization highlighted DEI as one of the top issues companies would be grappling with in the new year. Taylor said companies are already moving away from DEI efforts, especially those efforts tied to numeral targets for hiring or promotions of Blacks and other people of color or base executive bonuses on those targets.

The Israel effect

A pro-Palestinian movement on college campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas has elevated criticism of some aspects of the DEI movement.

Critics say colleges focused on the goals of DEI have cultivated an environment where students see the world as divided between the oppressed and their oppressors, leading to an anti-Israel or anti-Jewish sentiment on campuses.

At a congressional hearing in December in which Gay and other university presidents were questioned about antisemitism on their campuses, some Republican lawmakers drew a direct line from schools’ DEI initiatives to antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assaults. Their argument, in part, is that these initiatives have been overly focused on race and gender, at the expense of other groups that are victims of bigotry.

“Institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poison fruits of your institution’s cultures,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) at the hearing, where both Democrats and Republican lawmakers were critical of the leaders’ handling of the problems.

Some workers report feeling similar concerns in their workplaces, said Rory Lancman, director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which fights antisemitism.

His organization is fielding calls related to several workplace themes, he said, including “anti-Israel and anti-Zionist animus” driven by the Israel-Hamas war, leading to what some employees say they are experiencing as a hostile work environment.

In addition, he said, “Jewish concerns and antisemitism have been erased from corporate DEI programs to the point where there is no training on combating antisemitism.” Some workers are also finding that their requests to have workplace affinity groups, also known as employee resource groups, are being denied, often on the grounds that companies have a policy of not allowing religiously-based employee groups.

Register here to hear Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus among a panel of experts discussing “Antisemitism in Academia.” The webinar takes place Wednesday, January 10 at noon EST.

While pervasive antisemitism on America’s college campuses is nothing new, the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th unleashed a storm of Jew-hatred not seen since Germany in the 1920s and 30s. The aggressive and violent encounters by Jewish students and faculty members on campuses across the country, most of which have been met with apathy, willful blindness, and callous indignation on the part of administrators who hide behind claims that free speech protects hate speech when directed at Jews (while ignoring that every other “marginalized” group of students must be protected in safe spaces and the like), have led to Jewish members of these campus communities feeling frightened, ostracized, and alone. The pathetic and embarrassing Congressional testimony of the presidents of MIT, UPenn, and Harvard only represent the tip of the iceberg but is there hope that perhaps the breaking of the dam will lead to significant and long overdue changes? Will pushback against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracies – now endemic across America’s universities (and K-12 programs) – continue, and will the national attention to what it has wrought for Jews on campus lead to a safer and more welcoming environment for them? Or will it require legal action from both individual civil lawsuits and federal investigations to finally effectuate the necessary changes that will lead to Jews being treated with the same respect, dignity, and security that is afforded every other student group? Please join us for an enlightening and informative conversation with Ken Marcus and Asaf Romirowsky to learn more about what’s happening to address antisemitism in the academy.

About the Speakers:

Kenneth L. Marcus is founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; Professional Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School; Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Center for Liberty & Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School; and author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press).

During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

In academia, he formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College School of Public Affairs and served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Marcus was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.

He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. Mr. Marcus is a graduate of Williams College, magna cum laude, and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

Asaf Romirowsky Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Romirowsky is also a senior nonresident research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) and a Professor [Affiliate] at the University of Haifa. Trained as a Middle East historian he holds a Ph.D. in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King’s College London, UK, and has published widely on various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and American foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as on Israeli and Zionist history.

Romirowsky is co-author of Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief and a contributor to The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel. Recently, he co-edited Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, a special issue of the journal Israel Studies.

Romirowsky’s publicly engaged scholarship has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Interest, The New Republic, The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet, and Tablet among other online and print media outlets.

Published by Jewish Policy Center’s inFocus magazine’s winter 2024 issue

Editor’s Note: This conversation is excerpted from a panel discussion, “Enriching the U.S.-Israel Alliance by Combating Antisemitism,” at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on October 23, 2023, even before the full weight of events was felt.

Kenneth L. Marcus is the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. He is also a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for Liberty and Law at George Mason University Law School and formerly Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the US Department of Education and has served as Staff Director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Ellie Cohanim is a broadcast journalist who served as Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the US Department of State. She had previously been a Special Correspondent and Senior Vice President for Jewish Broadcasting Service (JBS) and an Executive at Yeshiva University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and UJA Federation of New York.

Ellie Cohanim: To begin our conversation allow me to share context: Jews around the world are in a state of shock and horror. On October 7 while Jewish families in Israel celebrated the Simchat Torah holiday, Hamas infiltrated Jewish communities of southern Israel, massacred 1,200 people, wounded nearly 5,000 others, and committed atrocities not seen since the Holocaust. Israel says that 80 percent of the 1,200 murdered that day were tortured first. Hamas kidnapped young women, toddlers, babies, elderly people, and seems to have unleashed the forces of hate across the globe on that day.

Ken, not only did we witness these horrific crimes, these atrocities committed against the Jewish people—but before Israel had even responded, before Israelis had even the opportunity to identify, never mind bury their dead—we saw students across US college campuses come out and protest, and rally, in support of Hamas. What is happening on our college campuses? There is something called the Marcus Doctrine, which is attributed to you. Can you also tell us about that and how it ties into what we are experiencing today?

Ken Marcus: I have been fighting campus antisemitism for more than 20 years. It gets worse and worse, but never have we experienced anything like the past couple of weeks. It has been surging over the last few years, but this really has been something unlike anything we saw before.

Think about what’s happening now. What we just saw, and as you described, was mass torture, murder, rape of civilians, burning people alive, decapitation. The immediate response from college campuses in many places was to support the terrorists. In one case, a professor talking about being “exhilarated.” In many cases, student groups arguing that people should “join the resistance,” meaning the genocidal attack on Jewish people.

This goes beyond the hostile environments that we have seen over recent years. What we’re experiencing now is a mass phenomenon. Once we see it, we can’t unsee it. University presidents and the public now must face the fact that on our college campuses, something monstrous is developing. We have very substantial movements of pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist, pro-genocidal groups at some of the most important universities in the United States.

Right now, there are university presidents arguing about whether they should or should not issue a “statement.” Those presidents who either don’t issue a statement or want a “both sides” statement are utterly incapable of understanding the moral issues. But even for those who do issue a statement and even a statement with moral clarity, it’s still just a statement!

If you are the president of a university today, you are now aware that for all the millions of dollars you have put into “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” (DEI), you have created the opposite of DEI. For all that your admissions have done to create a student body that reflects the values you pretend to hold, you have created a student body which is in favor of murder. For all that you say that your curriculum should do more than just provide information or critical thinking, you have curricula that is training pro-terrorist people.

This is beyond “statements.”

We are at a time in which if you are a university president and you have not thought about cleaning house, you shouldn’t be there. It’s not about—“do you issue a statement.” It’s about—do you realize that you are running an institution that is fundamentally and totally wrongheaded in its approach and that is sending this country in the wrong direction? Even a good statement isn’t enough.

You asked about what I call the Title VI Policy—and what other people may call the Marcus Doctrine. That is the notion that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits certain forms of race, color, or national origin discrimination in the public schools, and in colleges and universities, but that doesn’t mention religion, nevertheless protects Jews and certain other groups that have ethnic backgrounds as well as religious ones. It is based on the idea that a group that has ethnic or ancestral characteristics should not lose the protections that they would have, if they did not have a shared common faith.

The Biden administration, to its credit, has expanded the use of the Marcus Doctrine to include not only the Department of Education—whose civil rights agency I headed—and the Department of Justice, but also eight other agencies. So, there are now 10 cabinet level agencies committed to the policy. I’m pleased with this. This is something that’s taken some 20 years to establish, but once we have this notion that these federal agencies are going to deal with antisemitism, are they going to deal with antisemitism? Because the signs aren’t great, the signs really aren’t great. So now they know they have to do something, let’s see them do it.

Cohanim: Let’s talk now for a moment about Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The Louis Brandeis Center was leading an effort recently on an SJP campus program they held on October 12, the so-called “National Day of Resistance.” SJP chapters are known for their anti-Israel propaganda, often with inflammatory and combative rhetoric. Can you tell us what happened with SJP and how do we turn this tide of Jew-hate on US campuses?

Marcus: I’ll give you a few examples of what’s happening on the campus and why it is that, respectfully, I agree that President [of the University of Florida] Ben Sasse’s statement was one of the best, maybe the best, but it’s a low bar. I’m not sure that it was good enough for the University of Florida, and it certainly isn’t enough for the universities that are seeing much worse levels of antisemitism. [Editor’s Note: Sasse’s letter read, in part, “We will protect our students and we will protect speech. This is always true: Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves. I also want to be clear about this: We will protect our Jewish students from violence. If anti-Israel protests come, we will absolutely be ready to act if anyone dares to escalate beyond peaceful protest. Speech is protected—violence and vandalism are not.”]

I’ve gotten reports of physical attacks on Jewish students in the wake of the call for “resistance.” And when they use the term “resistance,” they’re using the Hamas term. They’re calling for people to join in a worldwide movement that has reached its culmination—so far—in a pogrom involving torture, rape, and murder. They’re calling for people around the world to join in replicating the atrocities that have already happened.

In the wake of that, we’re seeing physical attacks on Jewish students. We’re seeing vandalism of Jewish institutions. We’re seeing students being followed, being taunted, being harassed in various ways. This is happening all over the place and it’s often supported by faculty members. Seldom are our university administrators really doing very much if anything about it.

Keep this in mind. If you’re thinking about the campus in the same way after October 7 that you did before October 7, you’re not thinking about it right. Prior to that, yes, we were seeing environments made toxic by antisemitic and anti-American ideology. Yes, we were seeing Jewish students who were being harassed, marginalized, and excluded to the extent that Zionism was an integral part of their identity, but what we’re seeing now is university-funded—and in some cases taxpayer-funded—efforts to advance in a conscious and intentional manner, the program and communications agenda of a US State Department-designated terrorist organization.

To be clear, what I’m describing is potentially a felony.

So, if you’re a university president who is not sure whether you should or shouldn’t make a statement, let me say that on many campuses, it’s too late anyhow. Statements are okay in response to statements and people who are simply saying false things. You can then say things that are the truth. If people are saying things that are immoral, you can give a moral example.

But if people are committing assault and vandalism, you can’t just make a statement. If your university’s facilities and resources are being used in a way that intentionally advances the agenda of a terrorist organization, if you aren’t sure whether you are committing a felony, forget about the statement. You need to take much greater actions even than the best of the university presidents are making.

We need to hear very strong messages from university presidents, from attorneys general, from governors that this can’t continue. It’s not a question of political disagreement. It’s not even just a question of bigotry or harassment anymore. Now it’s also a question of whether our public institutions are being used not only to undermine American foreign policy, but potentially to advance terrorism in a way that is federally criminal.

Cohanim: It is hard for us to believe that we have reached this low at our institutions of “higher” learning. Ken, you spoke a bit about a few steps that the Biden administration has taken to combat antisemitism. Do you think it should be doing more, and what kind of initiatives would you recommend?

Marcus: The Biden administration issued a National Strategy on dealing with antisemitism and should be applauded for its breadth and for public attention it brought to the issue. But in terms of substantive work it is doing, I would say that so far it has lagged behind that of the last few administrations. I would also say that there has been a sense from those speaking with people in the Biden administration that they issued their National Strategy and were planning to do nothing more until after the election. I hope no one in the administration has been thinking that since October 7. Because while there are some good things in the National Strategy, it wasn’t sufficient for October 6, and it surely isn’t sufficient for now.

I’ll give you a few examples. The Biden administration has continuously promised to issue a formal regulation that would implement the Trump Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism, and yet continually throughout this administration has delayed doing so. The current deadline, self-imposed by the Biden administration, is December of this year. Notably, they’ve been saying very little bit about it. They haven’t even mentioned it in many months, leaving some to think that they’re not ever going to do it. At a minimum, they should be doing what they promised.

The US Education Department Office for Civil Rights has issued some materials, but when it comes to the anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism, the Department of Education hasn’t even spoken with the same specificity that we’ve even seen from the White House—and at a minimum, they should be able to do that. Now, look at all the campuses at which there is so much antisemitism over the last two weeks; all you need to have is Google and you can see substantial amounts of harassment and “hostile environment,” which the Department of Education is obligated to address. The education department shouldn’t be waiting to get complaints. There should be a nationwide compliance initiative from the Secretary of Education right now—at a minimum—to address those campuses, where obviously there are problems, because they’re all over the blogosphere and the papers.

Audience Question: In the context of “corporate woke-ism,” I’m curious what you think companies should be saying about this? Is this different than coming out and talking about other issues? What would a good response from corporate America look like?

Marcus: Those in the corporate world, especially the human resources world, can look to the Society of Human Resources Managers (SHRM) as a good source of advice. I’ve shared my thoughts with SHRM and they have those thoughts on their website. There are a number of things they should do to begin with; there are things they already should have been doing. A lot of corporations have months to recognize African American, women, Asian, and other workers, but don’t have them for Jewish workers. May is Jewish American History Month. Let them recognize that.

Some of them have employee resource groups (ERGs) for African American and Hispanic and other identity groups but have refused to allow their Jewish workers to create them based on the notion that Jewishness is a religion only. They should be educated on that and provide the same ERG opportunities for Jewish employees as for others.

They should monitor their DEI programs to see whether they’re making things worse, because sometimes that is the case. To the extent that they have education programs on various forms of discrimination, they should make sure that they’re including antisemitism, including those forms of antisemitism that we’re seeing today—which is to say left-wing as well as right-wing antisemitism. To the extent that they made statements about the Ukraine invasion or other world affairs, they should be making them about the Hamas pogrom as well.

To the extent that they make accommodations for other workers who have various sorts of needs, they should consider their Israeli American employees who might be called to duty in Israel and might need some accommodations. They should certainly be making the sorts of statements that they make for others, and they should be considering both antisemitism and Jewish identity in the same way that they treat any other ethnic or racial background.

Question: I’m a Jewish college student and my friends and I have personally experienced antisemitism, specifically by the organization that you mentioned, Students for Justice in Palestine. How can we ensure that Jewish students feel safe in college campuses expressing both their Jewish identity and their Zionist beliefs?

Marcus: To the extent that you or your fellow students have been harassed, certainly talk to the Louis D. Brandeis Center. There are a lot of resources that can help you feel safe. We talk to students every day about that. Of course, there are also other institutions on campus that can support you ranging from Hillel to Chabad and Jewish Studies, but depending on what the issue is, I think the most important thing is that you do not feel alone. If you are facing a problem, there are a lot of organizations here to support you.

Published 12/27/23 by Campus Reform; Story by Patrick McDonald

In late November, several Jewish organizations filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley, alleging a ‘longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism.’

The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in San Francisco by the Louis D. Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education.

In late November, several Jewish organizations filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley, alleging a “longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism” at the college.

Filed in a federal court in San Francisco by the Louis D. Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, the lawsuit is one of only a few brought against large colleges since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October.

The lawsuit claims that the lack of a university response to anti-Semitism on campus has “erupted in on-campus displays of hatred, harassment, and physical violence against Jews,” necessitating a court intervention. It also states that “no fewer than 23” student organizations at UC Berkeley School of Law have enacted discriminatory policies that “exclude Jewish students, faculty, and scholars.”

Specifically, the document points to Women of Berkeley Law, the Queer Caucus at Berkeley, and the Asian Pacific American (APA) Law Students Association. According to the lawsuit, to join these student groups, students must support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Additionally, the suit mentions Berkeley Law Legal Services organizations, which require students to take a “Palestine 101” training program—a program that allegedly “emphasizes the illegitimacy of the State of Israel.”

Although the UC administration “publicly acknowledged the fundamentally anti-Semitic nature” of various student groups, the plaintiffs allege that the school has “taken no action to address them.”

The plaintiffs identify alleged acts of unaddressed anti-Semitism, including a professor ranting against Israel for 18 minutes in the presence of around 1,000 freshmen, “anti-Semitic mobs” on campus who cause Jewish students to feel “afraid to go to class,” and a Jewish student being attacked by two pro-Palestinian protesters and hit in the head with a metal water bottle.

The plaintiffs also aim to change the university’s response to anti-Semitism through a court order mandating that UC Berkeley uphold its nondiscrimination policies, and refrain from providing support or recognition to campus organizations that exclude Jewish students.

In an interview with The Hill, Dan Mogulof, an assistant vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, denied the allegations made in the lawsuit, saying that UC Berkeley has “long committed to confronting” anti-Semitism. He specifically pointed to UC Berkeley’s “Antisemitism Education Initiative” that began in fall 2019.

Campus Reform has contacted the University of California, Berkeley and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

Published 12/28/23 by JewishPress.com; Q&A by Alan Zeitlin

A Q&A with Kenneth Marcus

Kenneth L. Marcus is at the forefront of the battle against antisemitism in the U.S. He is the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law which handles numerous complaints of antisemitism from Jewish college students as well as from other arenas. Some of these complaints have resulted in federal investigations and lawsuits. From 2018-19, he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education in the administration of then President Donald Trump. He is also the author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism and Civil Rights in America. For a time, he was a visiting professor at Yeshiva University.

Marcus spoke with The Jewish Press about whether or not Jewish parents should still send their children to Harvard, UPenn, or MIT, whether a group that calls itself a Muslim civil rights group has shown itself to be extremist, and one step he thinks would help in the fight against antisemitism.

Were you surprised that in the congressional hearing, the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT refused to say that calling for the genocide of Jews was against their university codes of conduct?

I was surprised that the university presidents did such a poor job of responding to questions that should not have been so difficult for them to answer. There are many things they could have said that would have assured Congress and the public that they were properly focused on fighting campus antisemitism. They failed to do that. They gave narrow, lawyerly answers that suggested an inability to address problems that are not merely societal but have engulfed their own campuses.

Liz Magill resigned from her position leading UPenn. The three women appeared to provide similar answers during the hearing. Do you think the other two presidents should resign or be fired?

I don’t think President Magill was notably worse than [Harvard] President [Claudine] Gay who also failed to respond in a presidential way. To me, the bigger issue is not whether additional presidents resign or are fired. The bigger question is whether these universities are willing to tackle these issues in a very serious way. Simply removing a president is hardly enough, if there isn’t a will to make substantial changes both in the policies and the culture.

The hearing was viewed by many people, and there is a fear that such answers normalize antisemitism. Do you think that even if there are new leaders, anything will change?

This hearing has had an impact on our society which is only beginning to be felt. There are many people, including strongly self-identified Jewish Americans, who were at best passingly aware of antisemitism on college campuses until very recently. Even after October 7, there were some who didn’t get the magnitude of the problem. But now, it is very much in the news and on people’s minds. I have talked to many people who were unaware of the issue until recently who are now enraged and are calling for serious change. This is a moment that creates opportunities. It’s not about changing individuals; it’s about changing culture, and I hope we have the moment to do that.

Some Jewish parents are saying they now may not want to send their kids to Harvard, Penn, or MIT. What would you advise?

There are parents saying they would rather send their children to Yeshiva University or Brandeis University. Far be it from me to discourage them from supporting Jewish communal organizations. Having said that, I don’t think anything is to be gained if we as a community give up on the finest institutions of higher learning. We do not want a situation in which Jewish students lack the credentials and prestige of another student.

The White House condemned the remarks of Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), after he said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege” regarding the terrorist attack of Hamas on October 7. At colleges, there are Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) officials who have worked for CAIR. Are you surprised that the government seemed to be surprised by Awad’s statement, and should there be concern that DEI officials who have worked for CAIR may share similar opinions to its leader?

For many years, especially since CAIR was designated as an unindicted conspirator in a terrorism case, there have been many in the Jewish community and elsewhere who have viewed CAIR as being an extremist organization that is merely pretending to be a civil rights group. In recent years, I think there have been a lot of people who have been hopeful, maybe wishful that CAIR could fill a responsible role as a Muslim civil rights organization and maybe have turned something of a blind eye towards indications that they are not what they seem. The most salient example of this was when the Biden White House included CAIR as one of its partners for administering the Biden National Strategy on Antisemitism. These recent comments from the leader of CAIR simply affirm the worst fears that people have had and reveals the White House’s wishful thinking was simply baseless. It’s unfortunate.

In your book The Definition of Antisemitism, you include a portion about whether or not anti-Zionism is antisemitism. You write that criticism of Israel is part of democracy and not antisemitism. But you note Natan Sharansky’s 3 D’s of Demonization, Double Standards, and Delegitimization. After calls to gas the Jews and attacks against Jews around the world, the prevalent belief is that anti-Zionism is almost always antisemitism. What is your take?

In the 21^st century, today’s anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

In working on the Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, what was the goal?

The goal was to take work that I had done in enforcement matters and formal guidance and to elevate them to the level of a presidential executive order. Having one on combating antisemitism gave much more visibility and force and made it harder for other government officials to disregard them. I’m very pleased that the Biden administration, which rescinded so many other of Donald Trump’s executive orders, has not rescinded this one. Biden officials will say, when asked, that Executive Order 1399 remains in active force. Nevertheless, it would be far stronger to have a regulation codify the executive order, or better yet, a statute. That’s why I recommended toward the end of the Trump administration that the Education Department issue a formal regulation codifying the Trump order and making it less vulnerable to challenge. The Trump and the Biden administrations agreed to it.

It is awful to see at this moment in time, when antisemitism is so rampant, that the White House is not willing to give this issue the priority it deserves. They have continuously delayed this regulation throughout the entire presidential term. The fact that they could at the beginning of Chanukah announce that they need yet another entire year to issue this very simple regulation is just stunning. They’ve done a draft. It doesn’t require any significant amount of work. They just have to be willing to prioritize this issue.

In this hearing and a previous hearing by the New York City Council, there hasn’t been reference to a single student disciplined for antisemitic behavior. I did see an NYU student posted that she has been disciplined for ripping down a hostage poster. Are you aware of cases where students have been disciplined? I know there are rules precluding [the witnesses from] using the names of students, but could they speak of the cases?

There have been times universities have hinted to us that students have been disciplined in some way as a result of our complaints or allegations. They seldom are willing to say so clearly or publicly. In cases in which I am familiar, if they provided a description, it would be obvious who they were talking about.

What lawsuits or investigations are taking place due to your work?

If we are talking colleges as opposed to school districts, in federal district court, the case of the University of California-Berkeley is pending. With the Office of Civil Rights, there is Wellesley University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Brooklyn College, and SUNY New Paltz. We have filed those complaints with OCR (Office of Civil Rights), other than [the Berkeley case in federal court], and 100 percent have resulted in active open investigations.

There is always talk of the importance of the adoption of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism. Why is it important?

The government has already adopted IHRA. The federal government substantially adopted the same definition under the Obama administration, and it was raised to a higher level under the Trump administration. The question is whether the Biden administration is willing to state with clarity and specificity that it is using IHRA and holding colleges and universities responsible if they fail to act in a way that is consistent with the legal requirements of IHRA. There is a great deal of confusion and ignorance about whether IHRA needs to be adopted or has been adopted. It is part and parcel of a current active policy of the U.S. Department of Education. Federal funds recipients, which include nearly every college in this country, are responsible for complying with federal guidance. They have this legal responsibility, but they act as if they do not. At this moment, it is so important to have clarity in the law. That’s why it was important that the Biden White House promised to issue their regulation by December 2023. They now say they refuse to do so.

Jewish college students hear chants, get yelled at, there are images projected, and there have been a wider range of complaints from what a professor can or can’t say in class or other instances where they feel intimidated. Of course, they can contact you or their own personal lawyer if they have one, but how do they know what is or is not actionable if the presidents of colleges can’t articulate it?

The IHRA working definition isn’t going to solve every question, but it would be a big step forward. I have to say we get a lot of questions about close calls and gray areas. The fact is, this obscures what’s really happening on college campuses. A lot of smart people, including professors and pundits, like to explore where the boundary lines are and create the impression that what’s happening on college campuses [is] what’s in the gray area. The fact is Jewish students are being assaulted, Jewish property is being vandalized. There are many instances of anti-Jewish activity that is not within the gray area. We can have discussions about where the lines are in some cases, but those discussions tend to create the misleading impression that that is the biggest issue happening for Jewish students in higher education.

At the rally in Washington, D.C. a number of speakers said antisemitism will not be tolerated, but it seems like it is. What would be one thing that would give you hope or a sign of things improving?

I would like to see universities adopting the IHRA definition and integrating it in their DEI programs and procedures.

Published by JNS on 12/29/23; Authored by The Focus Project

The IDF follows specific rules of engagement to avoid civilian casualties—a challenge made almost impossible as terrorist infrastructure is embedded in and under residential buildings, schools, mosques and hospitals.

More than 14 million civilians were killed during World War II, excluding the millions of Jews and others in the Holocaust. Nazis bombed and pillaged through most of Europe and dropped thousands of bombs in civilian areas in the United Kingdom. Allied bombers were responsible for untold numbers of civilian deaths. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted after the war, 75 years ago, to prevent the intentional killing of civilians during war. Now, Hamas terrorists violate the rules of war by sacrificing their own civilians, using them as human shields.

International Humanitarian Law

The governing principles of proportionality, distinction, necessity and humanity constitute the tenets of the rules of warfare. These are key phrases that are regularly manipulated by opponents of Israel and misunderstood by Americans who do not have a detailed understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law published a fact sheet: International Humanitarian Law in Asymmetric Warfare.

The concept of proportionality is often wielded as a weapon against Israel. “Proportionality under international law is not tit for tat.” It bans excessive loss of civilian lives in attacks against military targets. It does not mean that the IDF is using disproportionate force if more Palestinian civilians die than Israelis.

The principle also “does not prohibit attacks resulting in the incidental loss of civilian life infrastructure, often referred to as ‘collateral damage.’ Proportionality refers only to the relationship between the military advantage gained in a strike and the expected collateral harm to non-military targets it causes. The attackers must also take precautions to minimize collateral damage.”

The IDF regularly warns Palestinians ahead of attacks, using phone calls, text messages and leaflet drops. White House National Security Council spokesperson and retired Rear Adm. John Kirby stated: “I don’t know that the U.S. would go so far as telegraphing its punches” to its enemies. Retired British Col. Richard Kemp concurs: “Never in the history of warfare has an army phoned its enemy and told them where they are going to drop their bombs.”

The principle of distinction requires the targeting only of combatants—not civilians—and the separation of armed forces from civilian areas. By placing terror tunnels under apartment buildings, storing weapons in U.N. schools and hiding terrorists in hospitals, international law allows the IDF to take action against Hamas in these locations since they are considered military sites. Also, the principle of necessity allows for attacks against military targets, even if civilians are likely to be harmed.

If Hamas fighters wore uniforms and separated themselves from civilians like Israel does, then the likelihood of Palestinian civilian casualties would decrease dramatically. Hamas leaders know that if its terrorist bases were in open areas located away from cities, it would be much easier for the IDF to respond to attacks. Hamas terrorists also recognize that the world’s perception of Israel will be damaged if it inflicts mass suffering on Palestinian civilians.

Hamas also violates the principle of distinction by intentionally targeting civilians. This was laid bare in the Oct. 7 atrocities committed against Israeli civilians and the thousands of rockets it continues to intentionally launch at Israeli cities.

Hamas Lt. Col. Ahmed Kahlot is the director of a Gaza hospital. He has been a Hamas member for 13 years. The Gaza hospital employed 16 Hamas terrorists—doctors, nurses and paramedics. Several Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists also have been employed at the Jabaliya hospital. The director admitted that Hamas directed terrorist operations from its offices inside the hospital and that the terrorist group operates its own fleet of private ambulances that are used for its mission.

Kahlot describes how Hamas takes advantage of medical facilities: “Hamas brought a kidnapped soldier to the hospital. There is a designated space for interrogations, internal security and special security. They all have private phone lines within the hospital. They hide in hospitals because they believe that hospitals are a safe place. They will not be harmed if they are inside a hospital.”

IDF International Spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman: “The IDF is a moral group of people, and it’s not perfect because this is war. But this is what makes us a Jewish army. It’s trying to balance those things at once. That’s how we are different from the people we are fighting.” Hamas is the polar opposite: “Anyone who dies, but them, is good. An Israeli dies, they celebrate. A Gazan dies, they celebrate.”

Col. Richard Kemp: ‘IDF is the most moral army’

The following are statements made by retired 30-year British veteran Col. Richard Kemp. He commanded U.K. forces in Afghanistan and also served in Bosnia, Iraq, Macedonia and Northern Ireland. He recently visited Israel during Chanukah and was embedded with the IDF troops in Gaza.

The IDF is the most moral army in the history of warfare and has done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

I spoke to many Israeli soldiers in Gaza and saw some of them in action. What I found deeply impressed me. The standards of professionalism and battle discipline of these young conscripts are remarkable, especially when you consider that most are straight out of high school.

In almost every alleyway and every other house in Shijaia, the IDF has found explosives, weapons and booby traps, not to mention terror tunnel entrances. I entered one partly destroyed house and saw boxes of Iranian-supplied hand grenades that had been stored in a child’s bedroom.

Hamas wants to maximize the death of its civilian population. The purpose is to get the international community, the United Nations, the United States and other governments around the world to condemn Israel, to vilify Israel, to delegitimize Israel and to undermine the Jewish state in that way.

The protests around the world are designed to intimidate Jews. That’s their purpose. They want to cow the Jewish community in our countries to abrogate any support for Israel.

I told the U.N. Human Rights Council that the Hamas objective is to slaughter and kidnap Israeli civilians. Hamas is the only army in history to deliberately incite its enemy to kill its own people. The United Nations has played straight into the hands of Hamas. The UNHRC has failed to condemn the oppressor of the Palestinian people: Hamas.

When I hear some of the lies, the propaganda and the malice that’s churned out in the international media, universities, high schools and so-called “human rights” groups, I know it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong what’s being said in relation to the IDF.

Points to consider:

Hamas intentionally commits war crimes; its supporters ignore this fact.Hamas terrorists target Israeli civilians and celebrate the deaths of Palestinian civilians: this is their official government policy. Hamas intentionally commits war crimes by using civilian infrastructure for military purposes, launching attacks from populated areas and employing tactics that put Palestinian civilians at risk. The actions of Hamas should bring condemnation from countries, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations. Protestors against the war should be laying the blame at the feet of Hamas. Instead, many deny and whitewash the Oct. 7 atrocities because they serve their purpose of harming the Jewish state. The deliberate use of civilians to protect terrorist sites and the targeting of Israeli civilians are clear violations of international law.
Israel does NOT intentionally target civilians. Hamas does.
Every loss of civilian life is tragic. In Judaism, whoever destroys a single life is considered to have destroyed a whole world. This sanctity of life contributes to the IDF’s ethical code. The Israeli military makes every effort to minimize harm to non-combatants. The IDF directs its actions at legitimate military targets, including Hamas fighters and terrorist infrastructure. When mistakes are made, allegations are seriously investigated. Soldiers are reprimanded or charged if they are found to have acted wrongly.

In December, the Brandeis Center announced it was suing the University of California for the “longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism” on UC Berkeley’s campus. Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus was all over cable news, framing not only LDB’s lawsuit, but also the egregious double standards on display when university presidents from Harvard, Penn, and MIT testified before Congress about campus anti-Semitism. And LDB launched two membership organizations to assist students and faculty experiencing campus anti-Semitism – which you can join if you have not already done so. Members of Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE) – one of the new membership organizations – are active in in our Berkeley case. Members of Southern Californians for Unbiased Education (So-CUE) support our lawsuit against the Santa Ana School District.

The Brandeis Center and its national membership organization, Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE), sued the University of California’s regents, president, chancellor, and other officials for the “longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism” on Berkeley’s campus – that has fomented a hotbed of anti-Jewish hostility and harassment.

LDB’s lawsuit argues that UC Berkeley’s failure to address discrimination against Jews in its law school has cultivated the spread of anti-Semitism throughout its campus, and that this hostile campus climate worsened after Hamas’ October 7 massacre, leading to further harassment and even violence targeting Jewish students.

”The situation at Berkeley has deteriorated to the point that something really needs to be done beyond just raising awareness,” Brandeis Center Chairman – and Berkeley Law school alum – Kenneth L. Marcus told Jewish Insider. “What we’re seeing at Berkeley is both representative and also extreme,” Marcus told CNN. “It is a symptom of a much larger problem that we’re seeing all around the country – at so many universities that it’s hard to keep track. On the other hand, what’s happening at Berkeley really is truly extraordinarily bad and needs to be addressed. Fox News, Newsmax, and NTD News also interviewed Marcus about the case.

Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin told Newsmax: “You have 23 student organizations that have adopted bylaws where they have said Zionists are not welcome to speak to their clubs on any topic. We’re seeking an injunction from the court that they should prohibit that.”

Kenneth L. Marcus gives Insights about Embarrassing and “Deficient” Testimony on Campus anti-Semitism by University Presidents

Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus gave a series of interviews before and after members of Congress questioned the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT – all of whom refused to say that calling for genocide of Jews violates their schools’ codes of conduct. “The very fact that the hearing is going to take place is as important as anything that actually happens,” Marcus told Politico in an article previewing the hearing. “Their handling of anti-Semitism on their campuses has been extraordinarily deficient,” Marcus told The Algemeiner in its preview coverage. “They should be embarrassed.”

Marcus told Insider Higher Ed: “The inability of the university leaders to speak with moral clarity about calls for genocide is shocking to a lot of people. The double standards that were discussed regarding anti-Semitism versus other forms of discrimination also has people talking.”

“This has been an ugly time on college campuses,” Marcus affirmed on Newsnation. “[The Brandeis Center is] hearing every day from students who are afraid to go to class, to cross campus, who think that as Jews they no longer have anywhere near the security they always expected to have on our own American college campuses.

LDB Launches Membership Organizations to bring Cases on Behalf of Students, Faculty, and Others Impacted by Campus and K-12 Anti-Semitism

The Brandeis Center launched two membership organizations to assist students, faculty, and others who have experienced or witnessed campus anti-Semitism–Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE) and Southern Californians for Unbiased Education (So-CUE). Both groups play a role in the Brandeis Center’s suits. JAFE is a plaintiff in Brandeis Center’s lawsuit against the University of California, and So-CUE is a plaintiff in a suit against a school district in Santa Ana, California. Everyone who shares our mission to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and to promote justice for all can join our efforts by becoming a Brandeis Center JAFE or So-CUE member and signing up here. More information is available here.

The Brandeis Center and its membership groups will continue to serve as plaintiffs in lawsuits and other lawful efforts to protect Jews from harassment and discrimination that targets them not only on the basis of religious practice, but also on the basis of their shared ancestry and ethnic identity connected to Israel.

“We are pleased to announce the launch of our membership organizations,” stated Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus. “Many people have asked us what they can do to help us to achieve our mission. Joining the Brandeis Center and JAFE [or So-CUE] is free, but it sends a message, and it provides an opportunity for people to make themselves heard.” Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin added: “The Brandeis Center has launched these powerful vehicles to facilitate our representation of Jewish and Israeli American… students…parents, alumni, faculty, and other individuals who have personally experienced or been impacted by anti-Semitism in K-12 and higher education. [They] will enable us to better inform, coordinate and represent students, parents, faculty and staff who are impacted by this anti-Semitism.”

Brandeis Center and Partners ‘Shine A Light’ on Anti-Semitism with Webinar

The Brandeis Center is proud to again join an unprecedented coalition of more than 100 North American Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, 110 corporations, and dozens of U.S. state governors in the Shine A Light campaign.

This year, Brandeis Center Director of Corporate Initiatives Rory Lancman led LDB’s Shine A Light efforts based on LDB’s successful approach to combatting anti-Semitism in higher education to ensure legal protections are extended to Jewish employees in the corporate arena.

Lancman developed an LDB webinar, “Key Anti-Semitism Issues in the Post 10/7 Workplace,” which took place December 21. Hosted by President Alyza D. Lewin, the webinar explored the specific anti-Semitism issues arising in the workplace since the October 7th terrorist attack in Israel and ensuing surge in anti-Semitism in America and across the world. Panelists discussed the importance of ensuring that both employers and their Jewish employees understand the relevant antidiscrimination laws that protect Jewish employees, and how employers can effectively combat anti-Semitism in the workplace.

Employers can demonstrate their support and stand up for their Jewish employees by joining this year’s Shine A Light campaign.

Alyza D. Lewin Joins Pepperdine Webinar on Campus Anti-Semitism and Free Speech

Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin joined a Pepperdine School of Public Policy webinar, “Campus Antisemitism/Campus Speech: A Conversation.”

Discussion focused on how to better understand and recognize campus anti-Semitism, including its relationship with anti-Zionism, as well as how institutions of higher education should approach speech around Israel.

“On October 6, we at the Brandeis Center were already being stretched thin, providing support and guidance to students experiencing anti-Semitism, and before October 7, there already was a crisis across campuses. What happened post-October 7 did not begin on October 7. The reason anti-Semitism has spread like wildfire across our campuses is because…for years now, the communities on campus have been fed a constant diet of anti-Semitic propaganda,” noted Alyza Lewin.

EEOC Commission Joins Brandeis Center for its Third Capitol Hill Policy Briefing

Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner, Hon. Andrea R. Lucas joined the Brandeis Center as a featured panelist for our third Capitol Hill policy briefing, “It’s Not Just Colleges: Corporate DEI and Anti-Semitism.”

Following introductory remarks by Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus, Commissioner Lucas, Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin and Director of Corporate Initiatives Rory Lancman spoke about anti-Semitism in DEI programs in corporate America, Jewish identity, and employers’ legal obligations to protect employees from anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination. The panel outlined best practices to support Jewish employees and then took questions from the audience.

“Colleges aren’t the only places where DEI programs are failing to protect Jews from discrimination, as corporate DEI programs also too often ignore, or worse, propagate, anti-Semitism in the workplace,” stated Lancman.

The policy briefing, organized by Brandeis Center Director of Policy Emma Enig, was part of LDB’s efforts to support the Shine A Light coalition’s efforts to encourage companies, organizations, institutions, and individuals to raise awareness about modern forms of anti-Semitism.

Alyza D. Lewin Presents at JNF Global Conference for Israel

Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin presented numerous times at the Jewish National Fund’s Global Conference for Israel, held in Colorado in early December.

Lewin provided an uplifting start to the college portion of the conference, informing students at the College Summit Opening of the resources available to them and their rights as Jewish and Zionist students. Lewin also served as moderator and speaker for a panel titled “Countering Anti-Zionism Campaigns on Campus.” And Lewin presented remarks on how to use the law to counter anti-Semitism before joining representatives from Hillel, AEPi and Students Supporting Israel, for a discussion titled, “Dispatches from the Front Lines: A Conversation with Jewish Campus Professionals.”

On the last day of the conference, when asked about the protestors who had demonstrated repeatedly outside throughout the conference in an effort to intimidate the conference attendees and shut down a Denver boulevard adjacent to the conference, Lewin told CBS News: “[the protestors] are looking to erase and eradicate the one and only Jewish homeland’s right to self-determination in any borders.”

“Remember that colleges are also workplaces”

In his timely op-ed for The Hill, Brandeis Center Director of Corporate Initiatives Hon. Rory Lancman urges civil rights enforcement agencies to protect faculty and staff facing hostile work environments and discrimination on college campuses. “The agency charged with enforcing federal antidiscrimination laws in defense of college employees, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and similar human rights commissions in the states and localities, must rise to the occasion to protect Jewish staff and faculty on college campuses, and indeed all Jewish workers in every employment setting,” wrote Lancman. “The EEOC needs to embrace all the tools available to it — including IHRA and the EEOC’s existing understanding of the federal antidiscrimination law it is charged with enforcing — and protect Jewish employees, on college campuses and elsewhere, from the wave of anti-Semitism that is making their professional lives unbearable.”

Alyza D. Lewin Warns University Administrators Not to Misinterpret New Survey Data

In an Inside Higher Ed article about Brandeis University survey results showing a range in campus anti-Semitism perceptions across campuses, LDB President Alyza D. Lewin cautioned against variations in survey results leading some college administrators to think the problem doesn’t exist on their campuses:

“It would behoove all university administrators to realize that anti-Semitism is spreading like wildfire across campuses in the U.S.,” said Lewin.

Brandeis Center Blog

Brandeis Center Intern Bryn Schneider authored a blog on Yale’s Buckley Institute podcast interview with Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus.

Regarding the weeks following the October 7 Hamas Massacre, Chairman Marcus stated: “Certainly, the volume of intake [for legal help requests to the Brandeis Center on campus anti-Semitism] increased by much more than tenfold from [already] record levels…So this situation now is not just historic, record-setting, and unprecedented within certainly our lifetimes, but it is exponentially higher than the record level that we had reached in the period leading up to October 7.”

Schneider just wrapped her third LDB internship, having previously served in fall 2022 and summer 2023. The Brandeis Center wishes Bryn best of luck going forward!

Published by eJewish Philanthropy 12/19/23; Opinion by Yossi Prager

After the brutal events of Oct. 7 and onset of the war between Israel and Hamas, funders, organizations and individual volunteers instantaneously leaped to action from a standing start, their on-the-fly efforts saving lives and raising the morale of a nation with many reasons to mourn.

It sounds like the triumphant story of a spontaneous, ad hoc response from the Jewish philanthropic community — but I believe this framing is a fundamental misreading of the past few months, one which distorts the most important role of philanthropy.

In Israel, the response on the ground was driven in large part by nonprofits like the humanitarian aid group IsraAid and mental health organization NATAL, whose capacity was also built over time by prescient funders. These organizations rose to the occasion in a dramatically impactful way because of groundwork laid over many years.

Similarly, the strength of the North American response is primarily attributable to structures and institutions set up long before the crisis materialized. The Jewish federations, among North American Jewry’s oldest institutions, have again proven their fundraising mettle; UJA-Federation of New York alone has already allocated over $50 million from its Israel Emergency Fund.

And the 3,300 Birthright Israel alumni who have volunteered so far to spend two weeks in Israel harvesting crops or packaging goods for civilians and the military — all paying their own travel costs — were only available only because, over 20 years ago, a group of committed philanthropists drew the Israeli government into a partnership that has brought 850,000 young people on trips to Israel.

The response to antisemitism on campus is likewise attributable to investments made by the philanthropic community well before the post-Oct. 7 surge.

Hillel, for instance, is the oldest of the Jewish campus organizations. In addition to serving and supporting the needs of students, local Hillel directors build relationships with university administrators. Both have become crucial in recent months. The Louis D. Brandeis Center, a nonprofit founded in 2012, is taking the lead in helping students bring discrimination cases against their universities; and Hillel, the Brandeis Center, and the Anti-Defamation League are coordinating with the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to guide legal strategy and provide pro bono legal services to students who have experienced antisemitism on campus.

Far-sighted philanthropic vision, development and investment made an effective response to the present crisis possible.

There are other players in the campus arena that are playing significant roles; I’ll mention just three, though many more deserve recognition. The Israel on Campus Coalition was created in 2002 to share resources and coordinate strategies among the many pro-Israel campus organizations. Right now, the ICC is conducting ongoing polls; the findings they release both inform pro-Israel organizations about student perspectives and help them craft the language that will be most effective in engaging hearts and changing minds on campus. Passages, a Christian organization founded in 2016, has brought thousands of non-Jews to Israel for a Birthright-like trip that helps cultivate non-Jewish, pro-Israel voices against antisemitism on campus. And as recently as 2021, eight foundations came together to establish Shine a Light, a convening platform for organizations, companies and individuals to unite in shining a light on antisemitism.

This is my key point: The most important role of philanthropy is not in the moment of crisis. It is in the generation of ideas and the creation of structures that serve the community under “normal” circumstances and can be ramped-up to meet the needs of a crisis as well.

The best philanthropy is strategically driven and forward-looking rather than reactive. Dr. Joel Fleishman of Duke University actually argues that the ability to generate strategic initiatives and pilot new ideas is the chief public policy justification for the relatively free hand given to foundations in America. While businesses have shareholders to whom they report and government officials must seek re-election and nonprofit organizations have donors to satisfy, foundations are free to pursue ambitious and innovative ideas that may take much longer to develop than the limited patience of shareholders and electorates would otherwise allow. This is the “competitive advantage” of philanthropy at the highest level.

This understanding of philanthropy has led the Jewish Funders Network to hire me to establish JFN Consulting, which provides personalized philanthropic services to individuals, families and foundations. In addition to offering introductory programs for new funders and foundation professionals and guidance on foundation governance and compliance, JFN Consulting draws on a network of 3,000 donors who can help inform the thinking and giving of their peers. The staff of JFN’s Israel office — who meet daily with Israel’s Home Command and are available to assist Israeli funders as well as Americans funding projects in Israel — are a particularly important asset right now.

After 30 years leading strategic Jewish foundations, including AVI CHAI, I think JFN Consulting’s most important role will be helping funders operate strategically to realize the full potential of their competitive advantage. A crisis generally creates the space for revisiting and reevaluating old ways of operating, an opportunity the Jewish philanthropic community needs to seize. The opportunity to optimize philanthropic giving is especially important now as we experience the largest intergenerational transition of wealth in history. I am excited to lead JFN Consulting and look forward to working with interested funders who want to not only meet emergency needs but continue laying the groundwork for thriving Jewish communities for years and decades to come.

Published 12/22/23 by Ynet News; Story by Clint Van Winkle

American NGO files numerous legal complaints against Ivy League universities saying their neglectful nature toward rising antisemitism cannot continue

Antisemitism has been on the rise across U.S. college campuses since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war.

In recent months, reports of antisemitic incidents at American universities have inundated news channels. Masked marchers advocate for a “free Palestine” that stretches “from the river to the sea” at the expense of Israel’s existence, and claim a right to “resist” Israel “by any means necessary,” including a “globalized intifada.” Jewish students often report being harassed, intimidated, and sometimes outright terrorized by antisemitic mobs who act with impunity.

“Antisemitism is spreading like wildfire across the campuses in the United States, and it is doing so because the ground was primed,” Alyza Lewin, president and general counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Media Line. “The campus communities were really groomed, and they were groomed to see Zionist Jews as evil. They have been fed for years now a constant diet of anti-Jewish hate.”

A rising tide of antisemitism

The Brandeis Center is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, nonpolitical legal group with the goal of advancing human rights and civil rights for Jews. The group has filed numerous legal complaints against U.S. universities for antisemitism, including University of California, Berkeley; University of Southern California; Brooklyn College; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; State University of New York at New Paltz; and the City University of New York system.

A recent study conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Hillel International, and College Plus, an analytics company, found that 73% of the Jewish students they surveyed had experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the beginning of the school year.

The ADL recorded 400 incidents of antisemitism on college campuses between Oct. 7 and Dec. 7. During the same period in 2022, 33 antisemitic incidents were reported.

The elite universities are awash in antisemitism. And it’s not just coming from the students. Recently, Dr. Zareena Grewal, an associate professor of American studies at Yale, posted on social media statements the advocacy group StandWithUS said “promote violence and display an alarming hatred for Jews, Israelis and Zionists” without recourse from Yale.

U.S. politicians have taken notice of rising antisemitism on campus, and representatives are working to address the problem.

“The federal government should leverage the power it has over federal funding to pressure colleges and universities to combat antisemitism,” Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) told The Media Line. “There should be enhanced enforcement under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, and national origin.”

Antisemitism scorecards for U.S. campuses

Torres, who represents the Bronx and spoke at the Washington, DC March for Israel, has been said to represent the future of pro-Israel politicians. His vocal support for Israel has led multiple New York-based pro-Palestinian groups to rally outside his offices over the past two months.

“Accountability should come not only from government but also from civil society, which should create a scorecard, rating colleges and universities on campus antisemitism,” Torres said. “A scorecard would create a reputational incentive for colleges and universities to treat the crisis of campus antisemitism with the urgency it deserves.”

Lewin called Torres’ scorecard suggestion “a very creative idea.” “We need to figure out ways to hold the schools accountable and to motivate them to take the steps they can take to really make a difference,” she said.

Three weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives summoned the presidents of three elite universities to speak about antisemitism on college campuses.

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, Harvard University President Claudine Gay, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth sat before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce to discuss their efforts to address antisemitism at their universities.

Their testimony proved disastrous, with one of the university presidents losing her job in the wake of the hearing.

Magill resigned from her position as president of Penn a week after the hearing. After she refused to specify whether calling for a genocide of Jews violated the university’s harassment policy, financier Ross Stevens threatened to withdraw a donation to the school of $100 million. Magill stepped down as president but will remain a tenured member of the law school.

Lewin called the presidents’ testimony “clearly disturbing” and said that the testimony served to raise awareness about antisemitism on college campuses.

Many have demanded that Gay and Kornbluth resign as well, but both have received formal backing from their respective boards.

“I and the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation entirely support President Kornbluth,” Mark P. Gorenberg, chair of the MIT Corporation, wrote in a statement.

A separate letter of support for Kornbluth, signed by MIT deans, department heads, and senior faculty leaders, addressed the issue of free speech on campus, distinguishing between “what we can say and what we should say.”

Harvard’s board also released a statement of support for President Gay following her testimony.

“Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing,” the Harvard Corporation said in a statement.

Rep. Torres said that Gay should resign.

“When it came to the question of whether [calling for] a genocide of Jews constitutes harassment, I found Claudine Gay’s answer to be so offensive and outrageous as to merit resignation, and I have said so publicly,” Torres said.

Gay’s comments came on the heels of several antisemitic incidents that have taken place at Harvard in the recent past. The Brandeis Center sent a legal warning to Harvard representing the complaints of three Israeli students who claimed that a Harvard professor discriminated against them.

Days after the Oct. 7 attacks, over 30 Harvard student groups signed a letter that claimed Israel was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Some leaders of the student groups had job offers rescinded as a result of signing the letter.

Help is available for students experiencing discrimination. The Brandeis Center has partnered with the ADL, Hillel International, and the Gibson Dunn law firm to launch the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL). According to Lewin, CALL will provide American Jews on U.S. college campuses “the legal guidance and support they need” to combat university antisemitism. Additionally, CALL aims to assist law firms and lawyers involved in administrative complaints and lawsuits.

Lewin explains that this will “better coordinate with one another to ensure these efforts work in concert, rather than potentially undermining each other.” CALL, accessible at Legal-protection.org, aims to “ensure all students who need it receive the best legal support possible,” Lewin told The Media Line.

Universities failing to protect Jewish students on campus can expect legal challenges from Lewin and the Brandeis Center. “When university administrators fail to act, even when made aware of clear discrimination, we are left with no choice,” Lewin stated.