Alyza Lewin - Brandeis Center

July 9, 2024 (Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the affiliated Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education filed a lawsuit against the U.S Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for failing to follow its own procedures in dismissing the Brandeis Center’s November 2023 complaint against the University of Pennsylvania for fostering an environment of anti-Semitism on its campus – an abdication of its responsibility to thoroughly investigate instances of egregious anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination that occur in potential violation of OCR’s anti-discrimination standards and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Said Kenneth L. Marcus, Founder and Chairman of the Brandeis Center, “By failing to follow its own administrative procedures, in violation of its own stated mission of ‘vigorous enforcement of civil rights,’ the Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Education overall have not only shown a blatant disregard for the wellbeing of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania, but for the due process entitled to every American who seeks relief from discrimination in educational institutions. Jewish students at UPenn and many other college campuses across the country increasingly continue to face an egregious amount of anti-Semitism, particularly after the Oct. 7 massacre. OCR’s decisions have crippled these students’ ability to seek remedy from these hostilities and allows certain colleges and universities to continue ignoring or even fostering anti-Semitism on their campus.”

On November 9, 2023, the Brandeis Center filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights against the University of Pennsylvania for failing to take action against anti-Semitic activities on its campus before and especially after October 7—the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Some of the instances of anti-Semitism include:

On September 22–24, 2023, Penn sponsored, hosted, and funded a “Palestine Writes Festival.” Billed as a “literature festival,” the event featured multiple speakers with well-documented histories of anti-Semitism but no significant literary experience. By allowing University departments to publish brochures and fliers advertising the event in Penn’s name, the University effectively took ownership of the Festival.
In the days leading up to the Festival, a swastika was graffitied on a classroom wall. And on September 21, a man broke into and vandalized the Penn Hillel, screaming “F*ck the Jews. They killed JC.”
Coinciding with the Jewish High Holy Days, the Festival included at least 25 speakers identified by the Anti-Defamation League as prominent anti-Jewish actors.
On September 27, Penn Chabad’s sukkah was vandalized with graffiti.
On October 16, more than one hundred “Penn community members” gathered in front of Van Pelt library for a seven-hour rally. At that rally, attendees expressed solidarity with Hamas, chanted for the eradication of Israel, and called openly for an “intifada revolution.” One speaker told Jewish students to “go back to Moscow, Brooklyn…f*cking Berlin where you came from.” Another participant shoved a Jewish student to the ground.
On Saturday, October 28, a prominent off-campus Orthodox house that regularly hosts Jewish students for dinner, games, and other events was vandalized when its Israeli flag was ripped down and stolen by a member of Penn Against the Occupation.

These and many other similarly anti-Semitic events that occurred on UPenn’s campus were included in the complaint filed with OCR.

On November 15, 2023, OCR informed the Brandeis Center that it had opened up an investigation into “whether the University of Pennsylvania failed to respond to alleged harassment of students and staff on the basis of national origin in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI.” OCR’s own regulations require an investigation to proceed whenever a complaint indicates a potential violation of OCR’s anti-discrimination standards. The Department’s Letter stated that “OCR will ensure that its investigation is legally sufficient and fully responds to the allegation in accordance with the provisions of the Case Processing Manual.”

A separate private lawsuit unaffiliated with the Brandeis Center – Yakoby v. University of Penn. – was then filed in December against UPenn by two Jewish students facing anti-Semitism on campus who asserted claims for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Breach of Contract, and violations of Pennsylvania’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Laws. Without notifying the Brandeis Center of its considerations, OCR proceeded to dismiss the Brandeis Center’s November complaint, acknowledging that even though OCR admitted that Yakoby was “not filed as a class action”, because the complaint “contains the same allegations as those filed with OCR” and “seeks systemic relief,” OCR was dismissing the complaint “pursuant to Case Processing Manual Section 110(h).” As such, given OCR’s own admission of this clear violation of its own policies, the Brandeis Center is seeking legal relief in having OCR’s actions declared unlawful, and the re-opening of the Brandeis Center’s original complaint against the University of Pennsylvania and any other cases similarly yet incorrectly dismissed under Section 110(h) of its Case Processing Manual.

July 9, 2024 (Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Lieb at Law, P.C. filed a federal District Court complaint against the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325 (“the ALAA”) and individual union officials for undertaking acts to expel and otherwise discipline two Jewish and one Non-Jewish ally from the union in retaliation for their lawsuit opposing the ALAA’s anti-Semitic discriminatory practices manifested in the now infamous ALAA resolution attacking Israel soon after the October 7th terror attacks.

The resolution opposed by the plaintiffs was so vile that several non-profit legal services providers employing ALAA’s members felt compelled to denounce it as anti-Semitic and unrepresentative of their values, including plaintiffs’ employer, the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, as well as The Legal Aid Society (which serves New York City), and the New York Legal Assistance Group (the Bronx Defenders issued a statement condemning a similarly anti-Semitic statement made by its chapter of the ALAA).

Said the Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center, “Anti-Semitism in a union isn’t any less objectionable than anti-Semitism on a college campus, in a public school, or at a workplace. The Brandeis Center will hold accountable everyone responsible for trying to expel Jewish and non-Jewish members alike whose Zionism, sense of professional obligation to their clients, and basic decency compelled them to oppose the ALAA’s discriminatory and anti-Semitic practices, especially the ALAA’s profoundly anti-Semitic and destructive anti-Israel resolution that over a third of its members ultimately rejected.”

Said the Hon. Rory Lancman, Director of Corporate Initiatives & Senior Counsel at the Brandeis Center, “Zionism is integral to Jewish identity, but plaintiffs — proud unionists who have dedicated their professional lives to serving poor and disadvantaged clients — didn’t need to be Zionists, or in one case, even Jewish, to understand that anti-Semitism is antithetical both to their obligations as lawyers and to the mission of a union responsible for representing the interests of all its members.”

Said Andrew M. Lieb, Managing Partner of Lieb at Law, P.C., “No American should be retaliated against for fighting against what they sincerely believe is anti-Semitism and its consequences, which is why federal and local law clearly prohibit unions from conditioning union membership upon acquiescing to discrimination. We fight for all employees, of all religious faiths, who all have a right to be both true to their identity while also benefiting from unionization in leveraging concerted activity in negotiating optimal terms of employment.”

The anti-Semitic hostile environment within the ALAA represented a cornucopia of classic and modern anti-Semitism, including:

Calling for the end of the Jewish State and the denial of the Jewish People’s right to self-determination, which in the context of the October 7th massacre and the support for Hamas and Hezbollah expressed by other ALAA members plaintiffs understood as a call for further violence against Israel’s Jewish population;
Ignoring completely the October 7th Hamas Attack, or minimizing or denying its barbarity, in statements on the Israel/Hamas war;
Accusations that “Jewish donations” caused ALAA Employers to denounce the anti-Semitic statements of their employees;
Charges that Jewish ALAA members opposing the anti-Semitic rhetoric and resolution have dual loyalty to Israel;
Attacks on the willingness and ability of those Jewish ALAA Members to represent minority clients;
Blaming Israel for police misconduct in the United States;
Orwellian claims that the Jewish state is committing genocide in its campaign against Hamas and that opponents of the resolution support genocide, distorting the term beyond recognition; and,
Dehumanizing and demonizing the Jewish State of Israel through the constant repetition of outlandish and debunked sensationalized claims that Israel targeted Palestinian Civilians.

One representative email cited in the federal District Court complaint reads:

“You keep talking about ‘Jewish babies being murdered,’ and women being raped, you’re simply spreading lies and misinformation. There is no proof or substantiation. There are no pictures. Even soldiers on the ground HAVE NOT confirmed this. LA Times retracted what they said. Biden’s team had to retract what he said.”

The resolution which the plaintiffs initially successfully blocked amounted to a 1,147-word diatribe against the existence of the Jewish State, wherein the Hamas Massacre, a pogrom unrivaled since the Holocaust, merited only seven words of passing mention as “the violent tragedy on October 7, 2023.”

As the resolution was rushed to a vote of the ALAA’s membership, the three plaintiffs (two are Jewish, one is not) and a fourth ALAA member obtained a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) in state Supreme Court in Nassau County blocking the vote on the grounds that, among other things, the ALAA violated its duty of fair representation and would unethically undermine clients’ trust in their lawyers ability to represent them regardless of their Jewish Identity or views on Israel. As cited in this federal District Court complaint, the state court legal proceedings revealed numerous examples of the anti-Semitic environment at the ALAA. The TRO was extended once by the state Supreme Court and remained in place when the ALAA removed the case to federal District Court until, ultimately, it was dissolved and the vote proceeded, with over a third of the ALAA’s membership voting “no.” With the resolution passed, plaintiffs voluntarily withdrew their lawsuit as being moot.

Immediately and in express retaliation against plaintiffs for filing the state Supreme Court lawsuit opposing the ALAA’s discriminatory and anti-Semitic resolution, four ALAA members identified as defendants in this lawsuit filed union charges against plaintiffs as an act towards causing their expulsion and other discipline from the union, a brazenly illegal act under both federal labor law and federal, New York, and New York City anti-discrimination laws.

Incredibly, the ALAA approved the charges as valid and set a trial process in motion. The remaining individual defendants are ALAA officials who aided and abetted and/or voted to approve the charges against plaintiffs for trial. Plaintiffs have patiently waited for months for the United Auto Workers International Executive Board to decide an appeal of the charges filed by plaintiffs, leaving plaintiffs in an intolerable state of limbo. The pending expulsion proceeding hanging over plaintiffs’ heads has had the intended effect of chilling their engagement in protected activity within the union and their willingness to oppose the ALAA’s continued discriminatory anti-Semitic acts. This federal District Court Complaint includes seven counts alleging violations of federal labor law and New York State and New York City anti-discrimination laws. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief nullifying the expulsion proceedings against them and prohibiting the defendants from otherwise disciplining or retaliating against plaintiffs for having opposed the ALAA’s discriminatory practices, as well as seeking compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys’ fees. (Plaintiffs have also filed a charge of discrimination with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.)

Published in J Weekly on 7/5/24; Story by Natalie Weinstein

When Tessa Veksler began her term as president of UC Santa Barbara’s student body last September, she’d reached a high point in her college career.

But the 22-year-old, who graduated in mid-June and returned home to Concord, knows this: She couldn’t win that seat again.

“Right now, no Jew would win,” she told J.

After Oct. 7, Veksler turned to social media to mourn the victims of the Hamas massacre, call for the return of the hostages, support Israel’s right to defend itself, and call out antisemitism, particularly on college campuses.

“Standing up for Jewish human rights is not political,” she wrote in an Oct. 9 Instagram post. “Being a Jewish student on a college campus should not be a safety hazard. Being Israeli should not be a death sentence.”

Veksler quickly became a prominent Zionist voice on social media, posting passionate videos that have racked up more than 5.7 million views. Her public profile grew so rapidly that she received an invitation — she’s not exactly sure how — to the White House’s May 20 celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month.

During those same months, Veksler became a target of vicious hate.

In late February, scores of anti-Zionist signs were taped to walls and windows in the UCSB Multicultural Center, where Veksler’s student government office was located, with messages like “Zionists not welcome,” “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” “You can run but you can’t hide Tessa Veksler” and “Tessa Veksler supports genocide.”

She shared her response to the incident online. “We’re not going anywhere,” she wrote on Instagram on Feb. 26. Those words have since become her mantra and hashtag. Days later, she gave a powerful address to the student senate where she stated: “I refuse to be conditionally Jewish.”

In April, an effort to hold a special election to recall her failed narrowly. In May, she posted a despairing video after the student senate voted to condemn Israel. “I, as a Jewish student leader, feel pain,” she said bluntly. Then in June during finals week, she posted about another wave of anti-Zionist vandalism and property destruction at UCSB, calling out what she saw as the administration’s lackluster response to hate.

Veksler has leaned into her role as an outspoken leader for pro-Israel Jews who feel under siege on college campuses. She has spoken online and in person to Jewish groups, including StandWithUs, Birthright Israel — of which she’s an alum — and Malka Productions last month in San Francisco, where she advised high school and college students against letting antisemites determine their futures.

In March, following Veksler’s response to the hate directed at her on campus, the U.S. Department of Education opened a discrimination investigation into UCSB. Two months later, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a federal civil rights complaint against UCSB on Veksler’s behalf for leaving her “utterly vulnerable to severe and persistent anti-Semitic bullying, harassment, intimidation, and threats,” according to the Brandeis Center.

“I want UCSB to be one of the first universities that takes a step in the right direction … and treats antisemitism like a genuine problem,” she told J. “If this was happening to any other group, it would never be treated this way.”

Veksler’s Jewish and Zionist activism has been shaped by personal journeys.

In 1990, her parents, brother, grandparents and great-grandparents left their home in Odessa, Ukraine, joining the wave of Jewish emigres fleeing the crumbling Soviet Union. After stays in Austria and then Italy, they were sponsored to come to the U.S. by Veksler’s great-aunt, who lived in San Francisco.

Antisemitism was a constant reality in Soviet-controlled Ukraine. Still, Veksler knows it was an unnerving decision for her family to leave everything they knew — and a difficult transition when they arrived. Her mother was 26, and her father was 30.

“Once you stepped outside of the Soviet Union like that … there was no going back. You had to relinquish your documents and your citizenship,” she said. “No person would willingly leave a home where you speak the native language, where you grew up … unless their life was so miserable that they didn’t have another choice.”

Her family lived in San Francisco before moving to Contra Costa County, where Veksler was born. Like so many other families from the former Soviet Union, the Vekslers were secular Jews. But following in the steps of other Russian-speaking Jews they knew, Veksler’s parents enrolled her in a weekly Hebrew school at Chabad of Contra Costa during her elementary school years. When she began asking her parents for a bat mitzvah, though, they balked and pulled her out.

“I begged them for one, and I really wanted it,” she said. “And they were like: This is too much, no.”

They later enrolled her in Contra Costa Midrasha, but she found it “confusing” to shift from an Orthodox setting to a Reform one and didn’t feel like she fit in. She also kept her Jewish identity under wraps at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, where she played tennis and sang in the choir.

When she was 17, her parents urged her to take a month-long trip to Israel the summer before her senior year. The trip was through NCSY, which Veksler said her parents didn’t realize is an Orthodox youth movement.

The trip changed her life.

“That really transformed my Jewish identity because it was a Modern Orthodox program. I really liked the community. I really liked the tradition. I really liked the connection that I felt,” she said.

She began to create her “own sense of Jewish self,” Veksler said. “This was all kick-started by this trip, where I kind of figured out this is the type of Jew that I want to strive to be.”

She returned for her senior year and started her high school’s first Jewish Student Union, drawing about 40 Jewish students and their friends to weekly meetings. She also created a project that year called Hands Against Anti-Semitism, which turned into a virtual endeavor when the Covid-19 pandemic swept in during her final semester of high school in 2020.

Veksler chose to spend her first year of college at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv through the Israel XP gap-year program, which continued to solidify her identity. After she returned to start her sophomore year at UCSB, she became co-president of the campus chapter of Students Supporting Israel and joined another Zionist student group called the Israel on Campus Coalition, where she later became one of 40 undergrads from across the U.S. selected for its Geller International Fellowship.

She is Shabbat observant and keeps kosher but doesn’t align herself with any movement.

“I don’t like to box myself into anything. I’ll either call myself observant or traditional because I don’t really fit into the exact box of what it means to be Modern Orthodox,” she said. “But I believe if I were to join a synagogue, it would probably be a Modern Orthodox synagogue.”

It hasn’t been an easy path because her family isn’t on the same one.

“Every step of this has been a battle with my family, with my parents,” she said. “I think the fact that I had to fight for it has made it even more important.”

Veksler graduated from UCSB with a double major in political science and communication in mid-June. Less than two weeks later, she was in New York for a conference of more than 200 social media influencers who fight anti-Jewish hate and spread Jewish pride. In August, she will move to New York to begin a job in public relations with a dual focus on the tech industry and the Jewish community.

Though her college days are over, her outspokenness on behalf of the Jewish people, and young Jews in particular, is not.

“I’m not going anywhere in terms of … being active on social media and going to events and speaking and working on videos and projects,” she said. “It’s all going to continue.”

J. spoke with Veksler over Zoom in late June. Here is part of the interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

J.: How do you assess your time at UCSB? Does it feel like there was a before and after October 7th for you?

Tessa Veksler: Definitely. It’s hard for me to remember before October 7th, but life was very different, and I wasn’t defined by one piece of my identity.

You talk to a lot of Jewish students. What are their biggest concerns?

One thing is safety. The other thing is feeling a sense of fear — of will I find my community?

I’ve also had parents be like: “How can you tell me that my kid is safe?”

I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you: Yeah, your student who goes on campus is going to be completely safe and secure and isn’t going to face any antisemitism. I can’t tell you that because even a campus that is perfect right now can change in a split second. UCSB was one of the best UCs for Jewish students. And literally within one year that completely changed.

So anything can change. I tell students that their fears are justified and that it’s OK to feel a sense of fear.

I do also try to give them a sense of reality, of what it really is like on college campuses because the things that make the news are all the protests and the bad things.

When I speak to them, I say: What you don’t see is the Shabbat dinners that have a hundred people. What you don’t see is the Jewish community getting together and doing X, Y and Z, and doing a proud march. No one makes videos about that stuff. No one posts it online. No one writes articles like “Proud Jewish community gathers.” That’s boring. No one’s going read it.

For Jewish students, they’re only getting a little slice of what reality on campus actually looks like. And I think that again because the mob makes the media, we don’t see the middle. And the majority of college campuses are the middle, people who don’t care about any of this and just want to go to school.

This extremist left is not the norm. It’s just they’re the loudest. They make themselves the most prominent. They’re enough to cause fear and discomfort. But it’s not the majority by any means.

What is your advice to Jewish students who are heading to campus at the end of the summer?

I have a hard time with this question because, yes, it’s probably going to be difficult. I also think it’s kind of hard to predict what fall is going to look like. … It’s going to be very volatile.

My first advice to students is to seek out the Jewish community where they are going and really understand it and figure out where they fit in. As a freshman, it’s really important to understand the community that you’re stepping into and how you can either contribute or just be a part of it. And people will be there to guide you because they already understand what it is to be a Jew on that campus.

Also, we are receiving an education in college. But there has to be an element of self-education when it comes to this topic of Israel and Jewishness. Figure out the type of Jew that you want to walk out of college as. What are values that you don’t wish to sacrifice? Hold onto those throughout your four years.

For me, before I went into college, I knew what I wanted to walk out of college like: I still want to be keeping Shabbat. I want to have Jewish friends by the time I leave. And I want to be engaged in this community. Those are the values that I held close.

Any incoming student needs to try to picture that because it’s very easy to lose yourself.

I think that [another] piece of advice is … don’t take everything you see or hear as the truth. You have to seek out the truth from the information that you receive. That’s one of the biggest flaws in my generation. Just because someone you like who is famous says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Or a professor — who you’re supposed to trust, who is supposed to have academic integrity and teach you a true narrative — might actually teach you something completely false.

The biggest lesson that I learned in college is to ask a lot of questions. Ask questions of your professors, like how did you figure that out? Or why do you know this? The same thing with a pro-Palestine protester. If you’re not ready to engage with them and that’s too much for you, just ask them a question: “Why are you here? What are you fighting for? I’m just curious.” Curiosity doesn’t take any mental energy.

So you are basically telling students to brace themselves but not necessarily be pessimistic?

I don’t think that their focus should be on how bad their campus is going to be. I want Jewish students to have a sense of normalcy because our world is already abnormal. We’re already living in a world of war for Israel.

I want Jews to just go to school, go to your classes, meet friends, join clubs, just live the life that you need to live. And along the way, of course, educate yourself, join your Jewish community. But I feel like Jews need a sense of normalcy.

You don’t have to walk into your classrooms ready to fight your pro-Palestine peer. You don’t have to walk in ready to fight your professor. Be armed with the facts and with the truth, and with inquisitiveness and curiosity to face those things if they come your way.

I don’t need to scream. I don’t need to fight. They’re already angry because you’re there. It doesn’t matter if you’re loud, or if you’re quiet. They just don’t want Zionists there.

I don’t want us to feel like we have to exist for them.

Regarding anti-Zionist Jewish students on campus, do you have a message for them?

I think the anti-Zionists are the greatest disappointment to the Jewish community. You can criticize Israel all day long, but I think that believing that your Jewish community doesn’t deserve a right to exist just means that you’re extremely privileged to come from a place of being able to say that.

You have said that you refuse to be conditionally Jewish, what does that mean to you?

My family was forced to be conditionally Jewish [in Ukraine]. You were allowed to, I guess, exist. But you had to exist in a very specific way. And my parents didn’t come all this way for me to have to exist in a very specific way to make other people around me feel comfortable with my Jewish self.

I don’t understand why I — just because I’m Jewish — should have to live a different life or have a different sense of self. Everyone else in the world gets to be who they want to be, and I don’t understand why I shouldn’t have to change that to make other people comfortable, especially to make antisemites comfortable.

The House Ways and Means Committee invited Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus to testify at its hearing: “Crisis on Campus: Antisemitism, Radical Faculty, and the Failure of University Leadership,” which took place June 13, 2024. The hearing’s other witnesses included recently-graduated Cornell student Talia Dror, Columbia Professor Shai Davidai, American Jewish Committee CEO and former U.S. Congressman Ted Deutch, and American First Policy Institute Higher Education Reform Director Dr. Jonathan Pidluzny.

This hearing focused on what Congress could do to respond and stop the rampant anti-Semitism that students have seen and experienced on college campuses since the October 7 Hamas massacre. The various ideas included curbing the college’s tax-exempt status, cutting federal funding, and revoking foreign wrongdoers’ visas. “Over the last 20 years, I have been fighting anti-Semitism on college campuses, but never seen anything like what we have experienced since October 7,” began Chairman Marcus in his opening statement. “Over the time since…this Committee held its last hearing…we are seeing a kind of perfect storm of student violent extremism, professorial politicization, undisclosed foreign funding, and often feckless and weak administration.”

Chairman Marcus shared concern about retaliation against students who report the anti-Semitic abuse: “In some cases, those who report anti-Semitic incidents have been met with retaliatory complaints or countercomplaints. Students should be encouraged to report their abuse without fear of reprisal.” Marcus is also troubled about how the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has dismissed some complaints unlawfully. He recommended OCR prioritize “opening, investigating, and resolving shared ancestry cases.” He suggested the Dept. of Education not merely wait for new complaints to be filed, but instead open its own investigations of anti-Semitic discrimination on campuses. And Marcus recommended joint investigations with the U.S. Department of Justice, because discrimination cases can fall under their purview.

Two bills were also discussed as potential remedies. One was the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Chairman Marcus called this a “huge step,” saying, “I hope the Senate will follow suit.”

Chairman Marcus advises that university presidents investigate Students for Justice in Palestine for “potential violations of the prohibition against materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization under 18 USC 2339A and B, and its state equivalents. Marcus also advocated for increased transparency about the “large sums of money from foreign governments.” But he cautioned for the “need to know what those funds are used for and “what impact it has on the curriculum and campus environment.”

The idea of rescinding funding to schools that refuse or declare themselves unable to respond to the ongoing crisis of hatred on campuses was endorsed by all the hearing’s witnesses. In response to a question from Congressman Drew Fergurson, Marcus said school administrations are “addicted to federal funding,” and it would change their

approach to anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination of students were their federal funding to be revoked or blocked.

Video of the hearing and a transcript of Chairman Marcus’s opening statement are embedded below.

Full Hearing Recording – Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus’s Opening Statement Begins at 1:03:07

Ken Marcus Testimony 061324 FINAL Download

Authored by: Eli Goldstein

The Brandeis Center congratulates the dedicated Brooklyn parents who persuaded NYC Schools Chancellor David C. Banks to remove a local Community Education Council chair over anti-Semitic messages and events. We were proud to assist them in this effort.

Last November, two dozen concerned Brooklyn parents sought the Brandeis Center’s help communicating to Chancellor Banks and the office of Family and Community Engagement (FACE) the urgent need for action after Community Education Council (CEC) 14 President Tajh Sutton began using her position and the CEC itself to promote anti-Semitic messages and events, including encouraging student walkouts and booting pro-Israel parents from CEC meetings.

This week, in response to a letter from outraged parents and in the face of a complaint filed with the state Education Department, Chancellor Banks took the unprecedented step of removing the CEC 14 president.

As reported by Chalkbeat, a news outlet focused on education reporting in New York, Banks found that Sutton’s conduct has “justifiably been perceived by many community members as anti-Israel and antisemitic,” and that her dissemination of an anti-Israel protest toolkit violated anti-discrimination policies because, among other things, it encouraged students to chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Say it loud, say it clear; We don’t want Zionists here.”

The Brandeis Center is grateful for the opportunity to play a role in – as our mission states – advancing the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promoting justice for all. Congratulations to the dedicated parents and their students who benefit from a less discriminatory education environment.

Published in the New York Post on 6/17/2024 by Carl Campanile and David Propper

A Columbia University task force investigating antisemitism at the Manhattan Ivy League university has found a disturbing pattern of bias against Jews this year — including one professor who allegedly warned students to avoid the mainstream news because “it is owned by Jews,” according to a report.

Task force members told Haaretz that Jewish and Israeli pupils at the uptown campus felt “very targeted and ostracized” in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza — and ongoing protests.

In another shocking allegation, a professor singled out a student with a Jewish-sounding last name while reading a class roll call and demanding they justify Israel’s war against Hamas.

Numerous students also reported having Jewish symbols torn off them while walking on campus, the Israeli outlet reported.

Professors also encouraged students to take part in anti-Israel demonstrations, and some pupils were forced to quit out of clubs because they didn’t want to be part of actions against Israel.

The Columbia antisemitism task force issued its first report in March. It has not issued its second, follow-up report yet.

But, task force members told the Israeli newspaper that there is plenty of work to be done after the group was formed in November; it has heard from about 500 students.

Professor Gil Zussman, an Israeli electric engineering professor, told The Post that the environment on campus is hostile to Israeli students, in particular.

“There’s clear discrimination against Israeli students and Jews,” he said. “They’ve been targeted from the beginning by demonstrators.”

He said he knows of at least two professors who brought their classes to anti-Israel encampments that cropped up on campus this spring.

“That’s like saying, `We don’t want Zionists here,’” he said. “I believe it’s a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights law to move classes into the encampment.”

Task force co-chair Ester Fuchs said the task force heard testimony that students believe their identity, values and existence on campus are under attack.

“My heart was broken listening to these students and what they were being forced to deal with,” Fuchs told Haaretz.

Another co-chair, law professor David Schizer, said the task force only understood how troubling antisemitism was on campus after hearing from scores of students.

“Unfortunately, there are still many faculty members who do not believe that there is antisemitism on campus, and some claim that antisemitism is being weaponized to protect pro-Israel views,” he told Haaretz.

A third co-chair, journalism professor Nicholas Lemann, told Haaretz the idea of Zionism is “unacceptable” in some circles.

“In terms of what we’ve heard, Jewish and Israeli students are feeling very targeted and ostracized,” he said.

Rory Lancman, an official with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Post he worries that Columbia is searching for a “watered-down definition of antisemitism,” based on the reports.

He think that indicates the school is not serious about fighting it on campus.

“You can’t solve a problem that you’re unwilling to define,” said Lancman.

The Post has sought comment from Columbia, though the school told Haaretz: “We are committed to combatting antisemitism and taking sustained, concrete action to ensure Columbia is a campus where Jewish students and everyone in our community feels safe, valued and able to thrive.”

Published 6/17/24 by New York Post; Story by Carl Campanile

CUNY has entered into a settlement agreement with the US Department of Education to resolve nine discrimination complaints alleging antisemitism, Islamophobia and other harassment — many occurring well before the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

Under the Monday agreement — which also cites alleged civil rights violations by the central office — the City University of New York agreed to more aggressively confront anti-Jewish hatred and other bigotry on its campuses through more extensive training, surveys, and better probes and reporting of discrimination.

“The CUNY agreement is a step in the right direction as it recognizes that CUNY failed to adequately address the problem and sets up federal monitoring and oversight,” said Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which represented students in the Brooklyn College case.

“It is a far cry, however, from an ‘all clear’ for CUNY. The devil will be in the details. We are eager to see what specific steps CUNY will take to actively address the anti-Semitism that has run rampant on their campuses for far too long,” Lewin said in a statement.

At Brooklyn College, white and Jewish students in the Graduate Program for Mental Health Counseling told of being bullied — and deemed “privileged” — in the fall of 2020.

When a student complained, the deputy director of the program allegedly said white students should “keep quiet” and “keep their heads down.”

Among the other complaints cited by the federal DOE’s Office of Civil Rights at other CUNY schools, including Hunter, Baruch and Queens Colleges and the School of Law were:

Students and professors hijacked two Zoom sessions of a Hunter College course in 2021 by reading a statement calling for the decolonization of Palestine while demonizing Israel. Several students wrote in the Zoom chat that they were scared. “OCR found that Hunter concluded—without interviewing students present during the sessions—that the disruption did not deny access to education, and that Hunter did not respond to requests from Jewish students to learn Hunter’s response,” the department said in a letter sent Monday to CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez.
A videotaped incident in 2020 of CUNY Law School student holding a lighter flame close to a sweatshirt bearing the emblem of the Israel Defense Forces, claiming she was going to set it on fire. The complainant alleged that the incident constituted antisemitic harassment, and that the incident and the Law School’s response to it were inadequate. The Law School said it never received a formal complaint the incident, which occurred off-campus and therefore the student was not disciplined.
Pro-Palestinian students alleged discrimination after the Law School cancelled a Muslim Law Student Association event titled “Fighting Complicity Against Genocide” on Nov.15, 2023. The Law School — which is being sued by pro-Palestinian students for nixing graduation speakers after years of hate-spewing messages — cancelled the event for not having enough time to address safety concerns.
At Queens College, Muslim students claimed they were verbally harassed and called names, such as “ISIS” and “terrorists” during pro-Palestinian protests in fall 2023, and and one was harassed for wearing a keffiyeh on campus. Jewish students also complained of being subjected to slurs at pro-Israel rallies.
In the spring of 2022, a Baruch College student alleged harassment after hearing slurs such as “f—ing Jew,” or “f—ing Jew who doesn’t want to wear a mask.” “Baruch did not provide to OCR information regarding complaints of national origin harassment (including shared Jewish ancestry) during the spring 2022 semester,” the department said.

The letter cited testimony of Jewish students and professors at a 2022 City Council hearing, saying they had been targeted with antisemitic slurs, including calls for the murder of Jews.

Rachel Pomerantz, the regional director of the OCR, said anti-discrimination policies at CUNY campuses may not be uniformly enforced.

“OCR identified concerns that particular constituent campuses, such as Hunter, the Law School, and Brooklyn appear not to have taken sufficient action in response to the existence of a potentially hostile environment, as evidenced by the persisting and sometimes escalating incidents,” Pomerantz said.

“For example, OCR is concerned that Brooklyn appears not to have either promptly or effectively responded to reports and incidents of discrimination, including harassment of students, based on race and shared ancestry.”

As part of the agreement, CUNY has agreed to conduct a system-wide campus climate survey at all 25 campuses to help address bigotry and harassment.

The university also agreed to provide training for new hires, including campus chief diversity officers and compliance and campus safety officers.

Three colleges — CUNY Law, Hunter College and Brooklyn College) will reinvestigate four incidents dating back to 2019-21.

“CUNY is committed to providing an environment that is free from discrimination and hate and these new steps will ensure that there is consistency and transparency in how complaints are investigated and resolved,” said CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez.

CUNY board of trustees chairman Bill Thompson said CUNY “believes in the dignity of all human beings and stands united against bigotry or hate of any kind on our campuses.”

Jewish students say they were subjected to violent threats and ‘anti-Semitic incidents’ by members of Students for Justice in Palestine

Published 6/17/24 by Washington Free Beacon by Adam Kredo

The federal government has opened a formal investigation into allegations that Chapman University, a California-based private school, permitted “unchecked anti-Semitism on campus” that included death threats to Jewish students such as “F*** yeah I want you and all Zionist trash bags dead.”

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law confirmed the Education Department’s investigation to the Washington Free Beacon early Monday. The center petitioned the federal government to launch a probe on behalf of several Jewish students who say they were subjected to violent threats and “anti-Semitic incidents” by members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the campus group behind pro-Hamas protests on college campuses across the country. Israeli victims of the Oct. 7 terror attacks are suing SJP and its parent group, American Muslims for Palestine, for allegedly serving “as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.”

After Hamas’s attack on Israel, members of Chapman’s SJP branch allegedly tried to remove “a Jewish student from the group because of his shared Jewish ancestry” and made “heinous death threats against a different Jewish student,” according to a press release and Education Department complaint reviewed by the Free Beacon.

Chapman is the latest school to face a federal investigation over allegations that its leadership permitted Jew-hatred to simmer unchecked on campus as anti-Semitic protesters rallied against Israel and its war against Hamas. Anti-Semitism is soaring across America as Israel’s war continues, with U.S. college campuses serving as ground zero for Jew-hatred. The Education Department is investigating a number of schools for failing to adequately protect Jewish students and police Jew-hatred on campus.

In one case outlined in the complaint, a Jewish student “was subjected to a death threat as well as other unlawful harassment on the basis of her Jewish identity” by members of Chapman’s SJP chapter. The female student was “threatened … because she is a Zionist.”

In social media postings documented in the complaint, an SJP student wrote, “Death to all Israelis who follow Zionism.”

When a Jewish student responded to the post, asking if this SJP member wanted her dead, the original poster replied: “F*** yeah I want you and all Zionist trash bags dead the f*** kinda question is that?”

University administrators were informed of the incident but “failed to take effective steps to ensure [the student’s] safety on campus, allowing the perpetrator to live on and move freely about the campus.”

Several other Jewish students named in the complaint say they were “unlawfully excluded” from Chapman’s SJP chapter “on the basis of Jewish shared ancestral and ethnic identity.”

SJP “subjects Jewish students and those it believes may be Jewish to a litmus test,” the complaint alleges: “It denies access to club membership and events if the student does not deny his or her support for the Jewish State of Israel, which is an integral component of Jewish identity for many Jewish students.”

The group does not apply the standard “to students it does not perceive to be Jewish,” such as those “who have surnames that do not ‘sound Jewish.'”

When one of the students named in the complaint attempted to attend an SJP event on campus, he was denied access. “A university administrator, who was present and aware of the discriminatory exclusion, affirmed” the organization’s decision “to deny [the student’s] admission,” the complaint alleges.

The Brandeis Center says Chapman University violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which affords protection to minority populations, including Jews.

“These incidents,” the complaint alleges, “demonstrate that Chapman is failing to protect Jewish students and is denying them equal access to educational opportunities on the basis of their actual or perceived shared ancestry and ethnicity.”

Kenneth Marcus, the Brandeis Center’s chairman, said that Chapman’s leadership, like administrations in many other universities across the country, is “refusing to do what’s needed to address these civil rights violations.”

“It is imperative that federal officials enforce the law,” Marcus said in a statement. “It is about time that the federal government is finally investigating Students for Justice in Palestine’s discriminatory activities.”

Washington, D.C., June 17, 2024 – The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened an investigation into a federal complaint filed by The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law alleging Chapman University failed to take action after anti-Semitic harassment and exclusion of Jewish students in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The case involves anti-Semitic incidents perpetrated by Chapman Students for Justice in Palestine (CSJP) and its members. CSJP is a local chapter of a national anti-Jewish hate group, with the stated goal of “dismantling Zionism on college campuses.” After the October 7th Hamas massacre, actions by CSJP and its members included removing a Jewish student from the group because of his shared Jewish ancestry and making heinous death threats against a different Jewish student.

The complaint specifically details several instances when the University failed to address anti-Semitic conduct by CJSP targeting Jewish students.

First, was the exclusion of a Jewish Chapman student with a Jewish sounding surname when he attempted to join the group in September 2022 to learn about CSJP’s perspective. In October of 2022, he was removed from the listserv and effectively denied admission to the group. He was similarly rebuffed by CSJP when he renewed his attempts to join the group in October 2023 after Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel. CSJP failed to confirm his RSVP to a teach-in event and later denied him entry to the in-person event held on campus. This also happened with several other students who are Jewish or have Jewish-sounding names, who sought to attend the teach-in event, but did not receive the confirmation needed for admission by CSJP and therefore were barred from attending.

The complaint explains that CSJP utilizes a litmus test whereby those believed to be Jewish, often on the basis of nothing other than a Jewish-sounding surname, are denied access to CSJP unless and until CSJP confirms that they do not support Israel. Non-Jewish students, however, are not subjected to this test.

The second incident detailed in the complaint started on November 12, 2023 when a CSJP member sent a death threat to one of the Jewish students who was excluded from CSJP, after she responded to a social media post in which he called for “death to all Israelis who follow Zionism.” The student then asked the CSJP member if he wanted her dead. He responded “f*** yeah I want you and all Zionist trash bags dead the f*** kinda question is that?” The CSJP member then sent her a barrage of harassing messages accusing her of not being a real Jew and alleging that “Zionism is terrorism.”

The complaint details Chapman’s failure to keep the Jewish student safe after she promptly reported the threat incident to Chapman’s Department of Public Safety. After the Department of Public Safety conducted a threat assessment and determined that the CSJP member was not a threat, however, the school permitted him to move back into on-campus housing pending an investigation by Chapman’s Office of Student Conduct. At no point since issuing the death threat has the student been prohibited from campus. The Jewish student had to live and study in fear for her physical safety at Chapman due to the death threat issued on the basis of her Jewish identity by an individual who was routinely on the Chapman campus.

What is more, the same CSJP member continued to post anti-Jewish content on social media. After Hamas’ October 7 massacre in Israel, he filmed himself on TikTok vandalizing an on-campus memorial to the Israeli victims of the massacre. He also falsely accused another Jewish student of stealing his Palestinian flag and threatened him, going so far as to demand the Jewish student’s address.

Said Kenneth L. Marcus, chair of the Brandeis Center and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, “Anti-Semitism continues to run rampant on college campuses. Too many universities are refusing to do what’s needed to address these civil rights violations. It is imperative that federal officials enforce the law. It is about time that the federal government is finally investigating Students for Justice in Palestine’s discriminatory activities. We welcome this outcome and look forward to pursuing the case to implement needed remedies to address past violations and stop future wrongs.”

Other SJP chapters at Fordham, Rutgers, Brandeis and George Washington University have been banned or suspended.

Ultimately, The Brandeis Center is seeking several remedies to ensure anti-Semitism is addressed including ensuring a comprehensive investigation into the death threat, ensuring student clubs are equally accessible to all Jewish students, disciplining student groups that engage in discrimination, revising anti-discrimination policies to better address the rights of Jewish students, and issuing a statement denouncing anti-Semitism in all forms and recognizing Zionism is a key component of Jewish identity for many of Chapman’s students.

The Brandeis Center is also pursuing federal lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley. The U.S. Department of Education is currently investigating Brandeis Center complaints of unaddressed anti-Semitism on numerous college campuses, including Wellesley, SUNY New Paltz, the University of Southern California, Brooklyn College, and the University of Illinois. The organization also recently filed complaints against American University, UC Santa Barbara, Occidental College, Pomona College, UMass-Amherst, and Ohio State University, working in some cases with partner institutions, such as the Anti-Defamation League and StandWithUs. At the K-12 level, the Brandeis Center has also filed a federal complaint against Berkeley Unified School District and is suing the New York Department of Education and the Santa Ana Unified School District for unaddressed anti-Semitism, after securing a recent win with respect to its complaint against the Community School of Davidson in North Carolina.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is an independent, unaffiliated, nonprofit corporation established to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. LDB engages in research, education, and legal advocacy to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses, in the workplace, and elsewhere. It empowers students by training them to understand their legal rights and educates administrators and employers on best practices to combat racism and anti-Semitism. More at www.brandeiscenter.com.

Ahead of his testimony at the U.S. House Committee on Ways & Means hearing: “Crisis on Campus: Antisemitism, Radical Faculty, and the Failure of University Leadership,” Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.