As the Biden administration begins its first 100 days in office, Kenneth L. Marcus reflects on Biden’s new tools to combat global Jew-hatred, the best ways for the new administration to address domestic terrorism, and the outgoing administration’s last OCR report. Alyza D. Lewin speaks out on Zionism’s centrality to Jewish identity, as well as campus anti-Semitism, and the definition of anti-Semitism. Also in this issue, read up on January’s federal guidance on the Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism. Read the entire Brandeis Brief here. Articles Here is what Biden should do to address domestic terrorism (JTA) Kenneth L. Marcus The Capitol riot signaled a threat to undermine American democracy. In this article, LDB Founder and Chair Kenneth L. Marcus explains why it is also a threat to all of us – and what the Biden administration should do about it. “After the Capitol riot, this must be priority No. 1.” Read More Zionism is central to Judaism Samantha Crane, Brandeis Blog LDB President Alyza Lewin joined Rabbi Yotav Eliach, Brooke Goldstein, and Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt for a discussion on how Jewish peoplehood includes a deep historical and theological connection to the Land of Israel on the Edwin Black Show webinar series. The discussion touched on a new anti-Semitism, excluding Jews from progressive circles based on their celebration of ethnic Jewish pride and identity. Read More Watch the Presentation ED’s Office for Civil Rights clarifies the Executive Order on combating anti-Semitism Toby Irenstein, Brandeis Blog On January 19, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued important new guidance on how the Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism can be used effectively, without restricting free speech, and how it affirms that “actions that target and scapegoat particular individuals or groups based on ethnic or ancestral characteristics for ‘spreading disease’ are intolerable, and schools should take special care to ensure that all students have a learning environment free from bias or discrimination.” Read More “Biden has new tools to fight anti-Semitism” (JNS) Kenneth L. Marcus President Biden has important new tools to combat global anti-Semitism, now that the State Department Special Envoy on Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism is elevated to ambassadorial status and the European Commission has issued an excellent new handbook on fighting anti-Semitism. In this new article, Kenneth Marcus explains steps the Biden administration can take to readily address shape-shifting anti-Semitism in America and abroad. Read More Alyza Lewin Discusses anti-Semitism in the United States with American Christian Leaders for Israel Toby Irenstein, Brandeis Blog American Christian Leaders for Israel’s series of informative webinars on anti-Semitism hosted Alyza Lewin, Dr. Susan Michael, and Liora Rez for a discussion on effective approaches to recognizing and combating anti-Semitism in the United States. In her remarks, Lewin emphasized the importance of defining anti-Semitism, focusing on how students on campus feel the brunt of anti-Semitism activity when they express their ethnic identity as Jews through Zionism. Read More Watch the Presentation Ten surprising highlights from OCR’s New Annual Report (FedSoc Blog) Kenneth L. Marcus The Trump Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights released its annual report of last year’s accomplishments on January 13th. The report demonstrated impressive increases in OCR’s efficiency and impact, in investigating sexual violence, anti-Semitism, race cases, LGBTQ cases, and COVID-19. Moreover, the report discusses how the OCR completed its Title IX rulemaking, pursued civil rights claims by students of any background, and continued its regulatory reform project. Kenneth Marcus explains how these ten highlights underscore OCR’s impressive growth in efficiency and effectiveness over the last four years. Read More
Don’t miss our Founder and Chairman, Kenneth L. Marcus, on Thursday, February 11th @ 7 pm EST to discuss college campus anti-semitism hosted by Gen Z Jews. “Today, anti-semitism is growing on college campuses. According to the ADL, there has been an 86% rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses since only 2016. According to Hillel, it comes from both the “far right and far left ideological orientations,” such as white supremacists and those who accuse pro-Israel students of being “Zionist racists.” Tree of Life Memorials have been destroyed. Students were forced out of student government because of their support of Israel. At one college, Jewish students had eviction notices on their dorm room doors. Assistant Secretary Marcus has been a leader in ensuring that college campuses are safe spaces for Jewish students.” Online Event – Register Here!
JNS.org ~ By Jonathan S. Tobin ~ (January 25, 2021 / JNS) Following the U.S. Capitol riot, there has been a renewed emphasis on the threat from white-supremacist hate groups from the Biden administration, much of the media as well as the organized Jewish community. The anti-Semitic imagery seen at the rally organized by former President Donald Trump as well as in the mob storming Congress was frightening. No one should discount the fact that although their numbers are few, such violent right-wing extremists are dangerous. If there was any complacency about such threats, the deadly attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif., in 2018 and 2019 should have dispelled that notion. Jewish institutions should remain on alert, as they have been for years, and law enforcement should also be better prepared to act to prevent criminal behavior from such persons and groups. But it’s equally true that just as a riot by a despicable mob was rhetorically inflated into an “insurrection” more as a way of expressing revulsion against Trump and partisan fury against his supporters than anything else, building these extremists up as being more than a marginal sub-sector of American society is just as dubious. While we obsess about what the far-right is up to on college campuses around the country, the ordinary work of fighting the example of anti-Semitism that has the most impact on Jews on a day-to-day level continues. The BDS movement continues to lose ground internationally as the four normalization agreements with Arab and Muslim countries concluded last year further undermine a movement that was already a terrible flop with respect to its efforts to damage Israel’s economy. But the impact of the hate spread by groups promoting boycotts of Israel and its supporters within the academy continues to be felt even as most students are studying remotely during the pandemic. In that context, the most important questions about fighting anti-Semitism aren’t solely focused on white supremacists. Instead, the key variable is whether the federal government will continue—as it did under Trump but hadn’t under his predecessor, President Barack Obama—to protect Jewish students on campuses where anti-Semitic incitement is encouraged or tolerated. As a feature published in The New York Times last week detailed, Jewish kids are still being bombarded with anti-Zionist propaganda and either shunned or marginalized if they aren’t willing to bend to the intellectual fashion of the day. As even Columbia University Professor Todd Gitlin, himself a leftist stalwart, acknowledged, “Hatred of Israel became a bellwether for the orthodox left,” meaning that acceptance of the delegitimization of Israel has become a litmus test for social acceptability. We are not unreasonably focused on right-wing lunatics with guns, but it is on college campuses that the most frequent interactions with anti-Semites occur for most American Jews. Yet as the Times article made clear, in much of the mainstream media, the narrative about the fight against campus anti-Semitism is often flipped to portray the victims as the victimizers and the hate groups as an oppressed minority. When Jews band together to respond to the anti-Semitic invective of the BDS movement, those preaching hate against Jews and Israel cry foul, saying their right to free speech is being impinged upon by Zionist bullies. A lot of the debate on this issue now is focused on how the reliance on technology for remote learning forced upon schools by the coronavirus pandemic has altered the playing field. Hosting veteran terrorists like Palestinian Leila Khaled at university symposiums on panels alongside others who promote hatred for Israel and Jews has become more difficult. Platforms like Zoom have found themselves in the cross-hairs of both outraged Jewish activists and the potential for being prosecuted for violating federal laws against facilitating terrorists. The same people who complain are equally furious about activism from groups that seek to expose anti-Semites in academic settings. As the Times reports, the ability of groups like Canary Mission or cell-phone apps like Act.IL are especially frustrating because they have allowed the general public to better understand the anti-Jewish hate that has flourished at some universities. That’s a shock to elites who have heretofore felt invulnerable to public criticism for their attacks on Jewish targets. In this same context, the pushback from left-wingers against the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of anti-Semitism, which has been accepted by the U.S. government and that of many other countries, is especially telling. The definition rightly declares that, among other things, judging Israel by a double standard and demonizing the one Jewish state on the planet and its backers is anti-Semitic. That means the BDS movement can’t continue to disingenuously claim to be merely expressing support for Palestinian or human rights when they engage in such conduct. The key to this discussion isn’t so much whether some university administrations will wink at violations of the IHRA definition by BDS advocates or condemn them. Rather, it is whether the U.S. Department of Education will continue to enforce the law in such a way as to threaten schools where hate is tolerated with penalties involving cuts in federal funds. That’s what happened while Trump appointees Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and department civil-rights chief Kenneth Marcus were in charge. It remains to be seen whether Biden’s appointees will be just as vigilant about policing anti-Semitism on campuses as they might be if it were African-Americans, Hispanics or other protected minority groups whose rights were being violated the way BDS threatens Jews. While liberal Jews routinely denounce Trump as an anti-Semite, they ignore the fact that whatever his other faults, this was an issue that he took a particular interest in, as even the recent Times feature conceded. There are many within the Democrats’ left-wing base that have embraced intersectionality, critical race theory and its myths about Israel being an “apartheid state,” or the Palestinian war on its existence as akin to the U.S. civil-rights movement. But other mainstream liberals have also accepted the false arguments that ignore the evidence that BDS groups are anti-Semitic by virtue of their ideology and also engage in regular acts of Jew-hatred. The government must not only understand that anti-Semitism exists on the left as well as the right. It must also realize that the former operates under respectable academic titles instead of being part of easily exposed and marginalized extremist groups as is the case with right-wingers. It is imperative that Biden’s Department of Education continue Trump’s policies of fighting anti-Semitism and enforcing the law in such a manner as to ensure that Jew-hatred is neither legitimized nor tolerated on college campuses. If not, all of the hot air we have been hearing from Biden’s supporters about fighting hate will be exposed as empty partisan rhetoric. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
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Watch the Program Here! Forty-thousand descendants of European Jews saved by Chiune Sugihara are alive today thanks to his brave actions. These descendants include LDB’s President, Alyza Lewin. Join us on Monday, January 25 @ 10 am EST together with @CombatAntisemitism and B’nai B’rith International as we honor Chiune Sugihara’s bravery with a unique digital reception. Featuring remarks by The Honorable Kanji Yamanouchi Ambassador and Consul General of Japan in New York Nathan Lewin Honorary President, American Association of Jewish Lawyers & Jurists (AAJLJ) who as a child was saved by Sugihara Alyza D. Lewin President, The Louis D. Brandeis Center Kenneth R. Weinstein Immediate past president & CEO of the Hudson Institute and former U.S. Ambassador-designate to Japan Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we draw inspiration from Chiune Sugihara’s story and reaffirm our commitment to combat anti-Semitism. REGISTER HERE # # # ABOUT THE LOUIS D. BRANDEIS CENTER: The Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc., or LDB, is an independent, nonprofit organization established to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. The Brandeis Center conducts research, education and advocacy to combat the resurgence of antisemitism on college and university campuses. It is not affiliated with the Massachusetts university, the Kentucky law school, nor any of the other institutions that share the name and honor the memory of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice.
The Federalist Society ~ Civil Rights Group ~ On January 13, the Trump Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which I headed earlier in the administration, released its Annual Report to the Secretary, the President, and the Congress for fiscal year 2020. In doing so, my successor, Acting Assistant Secretary Kimberly Richey, moved with impressive speed to report on last year’s accomplishments. The Annual Report shows that Richey and her team have done impressive work, even under COVID-complicated circumstances, to execute on policies formulated earlier in the administration. This Report, like the ones I issued last March and July, show that the reality of civil rights enforcement in this administration has been very different than what is generally portrayed. Here are ten highlights: First, OCR’s efficiency increased dramatically in recent years, which has meant better and faster service for children and families, as well as for schools and colleges. Over the last four fiscal years (2017-2020), OCR resolved 52,700 complaints. That exceeds by more than 15,000 (or roughly 28%) the number that the Obama administration resolved during its last four years before leaving a 10,000-case backlog for its successors to clean up. This confirms the analysis that I presented, based on last year’s data, in this Wall Street Journal article. Second, OCR has had more impact lately. While previous administrations spoke more eloquently about their commitment to civil rights, the current OCR has achieved better results for children and their families. Specifically, OCR resolved 6,018 complaints “with change,” meaning that it required schools to correct discriminatory conditions. This represents a 1,500+ (or roughly 25%) increase over the previous administration’s performance during a comparable timeframe. In other words, OCR corrected far more discriminatory environments in schools during the last four fiscal years as compared to the Obama years. Third, OCR completed its Title IX rulemaking and presented the incoming administration with a formidable challenge. President-elect Biden has said that he intends to roll back the new Title IX regulation. This will be a difficult lift, since rescission will need to go through the same arduous Administrative Procedure Act notice-and-comment process under which Secretary Betsy DeVos passed this rule. Worse, rescission could undermine both the due process advances of the DeVos rule and the new protections for victims – as I explained here in Newsweek. Fourth, OCR was historically active in investigating sexual violence, not only completing major investigations at large universities such as Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Southern California, but also raising alarms about sexual violence in the public schools, especially Chicago. Fifth, OCR has entered into significant resolution agreements to address anti-Semitism in higher education – a problem that has long been under-investigated. The Report highlights one case in which Jewish students alleged multiple instances of harassment, including one in which a student fell to the ground after a hostile mob surrounded her and called her names. The university agreed to tighten its policies, procedures, and training and, significantly, to adopt Executive Order 13899 (the “Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism”). Sixth, OCR has opened investigations into a series of race cases involving discrimination or harassment with might be called a “woke” twist. These cases appear to be ongoing, which means that they will likely be left to the next administration to resolve. In one, a Chicago-area schoolteacher alleges that the district’s racial “equity” programs unlawfully segregate staff and students into affinity groups based on race; use Black Lives Matter materials to teach that white people bear collective guilt for racism, police brutality, and other social problems; and discipline students differently based on their race. In another, a Kentucky university allegedly segregated its incoming resident assistants by race for training purposes, giving different training to students based on their race. Seventh, OCR has taken a more nuanced position on LGBTQ cases, in light of Bostock v. Clayton County, than is generally recognized. In Bostock, the Supreme Court held that discrimination against employees based on sexual orientation or transgender identity could amount to sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court emphasized that its opinion did not reach other statutes, like Title IX. OCR extended the Bostock holding in its Shelby County Schools case, ruling that Bostock compelled protection of a high school student who was denied the captaincy of her school’s color guard based on her sexual orientation. At the same time, OCR declined to extend Bostock to cases in which women claimed that their athletic opportunities are limited by the participation of biological males in women’s sporting events. OCR sides with the women complainants in these cases, reasoning that Title IX differs from Title VII in that the former statute was drafted in significant part to protect women’s athletic opportunities. Eighth, OCR pursued civil rights claims by students of any background, without cherry-picking cases that supported a particular agenda: cases brought by women as well as men, Asian Americans as well as African Americans, Jewish as well as Muslim students, and gay as well as straight students. For example, OCR highlights one case against a girls-only summer STEM program that excluded boys, as well another against a school that provided fewer athletic opportunities to girls. This approach, which protects both sexes against exclusionary or unequal policies, is reflected in new guidance that the Department issued on January 14. Ninth, OCR has continued its regulatory reform project throughout this year. In August 2020, for example, OCR rescinded Clinton-era guidance regarding the use of race in college admissions and financial aid. OCR explains that this guidance, while outdated, promoted policy preferences regarding affirmative action that are inconsistent with current law. OCR had rescinded Obama-era guidance on this topic in 2018 on ground of regulatory overreach. Tenth, OCR has responded to COVID with an unusually robust set of guidance, including early and repeated instructions for how schools can comply with Education Department regulations. This includes guidance relating to anti-Asian harassment, accommodations for students with disabilities, online accessibility, and other civil rights issues. In these ten respects, and in others, Acting Assistant Secretary Richey’s report portrays an agency that has become significantly more efficient and effective over the last four years, while rejecting regulatory overreach, applying law evenhandedly, and providing timely guidance under trying circumstances. The facts and data that this Report presents are a helpful antidote to the sweeping claims and baseless allegations that are too frequently introduced into political discourse around these issues.
We don’t have adequate tools to combat domestic terrorism. Biden should change that. by Kenneth L. Marcus JTA The Capitol riot should be a wake-up call for those who did not hear the alarm four years ago at Charlottesville. The riot wasn’t just an assault on the seat of America’s government, although it is surely that, but also a development that if not forcefully addressed may endanger Americans throughout the 50 states. More than 70 people connected with the Capitol riot have already been charged, and the Justice Department expects the number to increase into the hundreds. Congress and the Justice Department are right to address the issue of insurrection first. It is now increasingly clear that many in the riot aimed to undermine American democracy. When the dust clears, President-elect Joe Biden and Congress must also address the threat to all of us: The rioters clearly signaled that they mean to harm not only elected officials but ordinary Americans. A proper response must protect all of the groups to whom the rioters intend harm. Many rioters were motivated by racial hatred and anti-Semitic beliefs. Several displayed known symbols of hate: Confederate flags, signaling anti-Black racism, or the white nationalist “Kekistan” flag, or a Three Percenters flag, reflecting hatred of Muslims and immigrants. One rioter even wore a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt. The Capitol riot, however, was just the tip of the iceberg. The latest FBI hate crimes report, issued in November, shows that hate crimes in 2019 surged to their highest level in a decade. The report documents 7,314 hate crimes committed in a single year, including a record number of hate murders. These figures are simply too high. So what do we do about it? Some are now arguing for hate speech laws, but this would actually undermine our work. Richard Stengel, the transition team leader for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has urged new legislation to curb Quran burning and misinformation about Russian election interference. Such speech laws raise multiple dangers, including political bias, governmental favoritism and outright censorship. Some progressives may relish the idea of suppressing right-wing hate speech. But they should consider that future conservative governments, given the same weapons, may restrict progressive speech. Consider, for example, Poland’s use of hate-speech laws to persecute LGBTQ activists who criticize the Catholic Church. Instead, begin by beefing up police departments. Calls to “defund the police,” proliferating in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement, can undermine efforts to protect minority civil rights. Basic law enforcement is needed to protect all populations, including the most vulnerable, from physical violence. The funds need not go to exotic initiatives. What is needed is basic law enforcement. A recent report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which I directed over a decade ago, urged funding police departments to improve data reporting on hate crimes. Conservative commissioners dissented from the report, observing that it overemphasized right-wing crimes. The dissenters are correct to insist on evenhandedness in a field that is too often politicized. At the same time, in order to adequately respond to hate crimes committed in this country, we have to understand where, why and how often they are happening. Improved reporting is also needed at colleges and universities. Swastika vandalism, for example, has been underreported based on dubious guidance from federal bureaucrats. The Department of Education recently rescinded that guidance, but still permits colleges to rely on it. We also must do more to combat domestic terrorism. This year, a joint report by the Anti-Defamation League and the George Washington University Program on Extremism revealed the dearth of reliable data on domestic terrorism. The report’s primary focus is white supremacy, and the report noted that the National Counterterrorism Center, which was created to produce integrated, interagency assessments on terrorism issues, is troublingly not permitted to do so with respect to domestic terrorism. The report also urged the FBI to provide clear data on its efforts to understand white supremacist violence. If left unchecked, this type of hate can also fester within American higher education. A comprehensive response must address places at which young Americans are radicalized. This includes not only right-wing white supremacist organizations, but also left-wing university activities that promote violence. Consider, for example, that convicted hijacker Leila Khaled, a leader in the designated-terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was just this year invited to speak at San Francisco State University, New York University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa (remotely). Khaled’s events were canceled only when Zoom refused to cooperate, understanding that allowing the events to be hosted on its platform could violate anti-terrorism laws. At Northeastern University, Students for Justice in Palestine announced an event to study the PFLP’s “strategies and theory.” At this event, students expected to learn how to conduct “armed struggle taking the form of guerrilla warfare at first and developing in the direction of the protracted people’s liberation war” against their “enemies.” Their enemies include the “world Zionist movement,” as well as Israel, Arab moderates and “world imperialism” (read: the United States and its European allies). In other words, they would learn that the proper response to political disagreement is not civil dialogue but “armed struggle.” What America needs, in the wake of the Capitol riot, is not for political dissidents — whether they come from the left or the right — to preach armed violence. We should not pretend that such adulation of terrorism has no impact on real life any more than we can pretend that online white supremacy groups are harmless. At the University of Illinois, mandatory diversity training last year included praise for the terrorist Khaled. It is unlikely a coincidence that this campus has also experienced an uptick in anti-Semitic incidents. It was announced recently that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will investigate the university based on an anti-Semitism complaint backed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, the organization that I founded and now run. The university has pledged to address the problem. Time will tell whether it delivers. Back in April, on the campaign trail, Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway, Calif. with a commitment and plan to combat hate crimes. If the president-elect is serious about this commitment, his new attorney general cannot permit hate and terrorist activity to fester. After the Capitol riot, this must be priority No. 1. Kenneth L. Marcus is Chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism. He served as Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights (2018-2020).
DePaul University College of Law Center for Jewish Law & Judaic Studies presents “Combatting Antisemitism at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC)” on Tuesday, January 19th at 12:45 pm (EST). Co-sponsored by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. REGISTER HERE NOW! Antisemitism is a virus that pervades many college campuses. This free* webinar focuses on the efforts of students at UIUC, represented by Arnold & Porter, to combat this pandemic. Speakers: Alyza D. Lewin, President of The Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc. John Lowenstein, Executive Director at Hillels of Illinois Professor Steven H. Resnicoff, Director of Jewish Law & Judaic Studies Baruch Weiss, Partner at Arnold and Porter Read the flyer here. *Illinois CLE credit available for those who register in advance.
Biden has new tools to fight anti-Semitism (JNS) JNS.org By Kenneth L. Marcus (January 8, 2021 / JNS) President-elect Joe Biden has two new tools that can help him in his professed priority to strengthen international ties, support human rights and combat anti-Semitism. The new tools play well to Biden’s foreign-relations experience and enduring belief in internationalism, which favors intergovernmental alliances, democratic cooperation and a liberal rule-based order. First, in late December, Congress passed legislation elevating the State Department’s special envoy on anti-Semitism to ambassadorial status. This should enable the Biden administration to fight anti-Semitism more effectively on a global scale. The outgoing special envoy, Elan Carr, did a remarkable job raising public awareness about the world’s oldest hatred. His predecessors in prior administrations—Ira Forman, Hannah Rosenthal and Greg Rickman—were also strong. The enhanced position should enable Biden to succeed Carr with a high-profile successor who can work even more effectively with foreign peers. The candidates reportedly under consideration are highly qualified, including the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman and Sharon Nazarian. Second, just today, the European Commission and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) released an excellent new handbook on fighting anti-Semitism. It presents the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, along with its guiding examples and relates those to the contexts of 22 real-world anti-Semitic incidents and crimes. The European Union had already called on its member states, as recently as December 2020, to use this definition to identify anti-Semitic incidents. The handbook is issued to bolster this call within the European Union and to show how the working definition, including its guiding examples, can be used as a powerful defense against anti-Semitism. Its strength is in its real-world examples and best practices for policymakers. This European contribution will reinforce longstanding U.S. efforts to make the working definition more widely adopted as the global standard. The George W. Bush administration had used a predecessor version of the IHRA definition for international affairs. The Obama administration had developed its own, nearly identical definition for this same purpose. The Trump administration adopted the IHRA definition by executive order, applying it domestically as well as internationally. While the European Commission’s directives apply, as its name suggests, to the European Union, the United States is an IHRA member-state so the document applies here as well. This gives important elevation to the status of the IHRA definition in this country. While the Trump administration tended to go its own way, asserting leadership through mechanisms such as the Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, the Biden team gravitates more towards international efforts such as this one. The handbook observes that the working definition has been used by parliaments, governments, ministries, courts, law-enforcement agencies, city councils, civil-society organizations and (crucially) universities. For U.S. domestic purposes, the most important section addresses higher education, which has been a flashpoint for anti-Jewish incidents here. It also observes that anti-Semitism in educational institutions often remains “invisible, unaddressed and unchallenged.” This is especially true when it is guised as anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel. This is a key reason why definitions are needed. Notably, the U.S. government began using the Working Definition in its oversight of higher administration during the outgoing administration. The handbook reveals that the working definition is quickly gaining higher-education traction worldwide. For example, the German Rectors’ Conference, representing 94 percent of students at German universities, adopted the definition, declaring that it “provides a clear basis for recognizing hatred of Jews and is thus an important tool in combating it.” The rectors observed that the definition “takes into account” Israel-related anti-Semitism. The Romanian Ministry of Education promotes the adoption, by universities, of a code of conduct on anti-Semitism that incorporates the definition. Cambridge University decided, in November 2020, to adopt the definition as a “test to establish whether behavior that is in breach of the University’s rules is anti-Semitic.” Although U.S. universities have lagged behind, they are now beginning to follow their European peers. For example, in August 2020, Florida State University’s president publicly endorsed the working definition and its contemporary examples. And in September 2020, New York University agreed to incorporate the IHRA definition into its revised non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy as part of its settlement agreement with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. These institutions are overcoming political resistance from critics of Israel, as well as erroneous charges that the definition would stifle free debate. Used properly, the definition can facilitate free speech while educating all participants in the ways that some speech can be hurtful and some conduct hateful. These new tools can help Biden integrate domestic and international agendas. The former U.S. vice president has spoken passionately about the need to address anti-Semitism. Working with allies who have demonstrated with this new handbook their commitment to the human-rights values that he champions, he can use the new anti-Semitism ambassador to strengthen American international leadership. Kenneth L. Marcus is founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and author of “The Definition of Anti-Semitism.” He served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights (2018-2020). JNS.org
Washington, D.C., January 5, 2021: The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) is pleased to announce the return of Judd A. Serotta, Esq., to the Center’s Board of Directors. During LDB’s Annual Meeting, Mr. Serotta was appointed Secretary of the Corporation, a position that he had held during his prior stint on the Board. His return comes at a time where the Brandeis Center is expanding to address the resurgence of campus anti-Semitism. Regarding Serotta’s return, LDB Founder and Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus, who also returned to the Center recently, commented, “I’ve known Judd Serotta for many years, and he is one of the smartest and most thoughtful lawyers I have worked with. His sharp analytical mind and sober attention to detail have made him the perfect corporate secretary, and his return will be enormously helpful to us as we continue to expand to meet the current challenges that our students are facing.” LDB President Alyza D. Lewin noted, “We are delighted that Judd is returning to the Board, not only for the legal acumen, energy and commitment that he brings to our cause, but also because working with him is an absolute pleasure. The timing of Judd’s return is propitious, as we continue to combat anti-Semitism throughout the country.” About Judd A. Serotta Mr. Serotta counsels high net worth individuals and families on protecting and preserving their wealth and assets. Mr. Serotta has considerable experience assisting families in the preparation of wills, revocable (living) trusts, and irrevocable trusts, in addition to other documents designed to assist in the prudent transmission and preservation of our clients’ wealth. Mr. Serotta’s planning strategies are often, but not always, generated with tax planning objectives in mind to further help families maintain their wealth and assets. In addition, he serves as a family adviser on a variety of issues faced by numerous large, extended families where wealth accumulation and inheritances must be paired with the promotion of shared family values. He also provides efficient administration of estates and trusts of varying size and complexity. In advising clients, Mr. Serotta draws on his extensive previous experience as a commercial litigator, having brought and defended claims in federal and state courts throughout the country, as well as numerous arbitration and mediation forums. Mr. Serotta graduated Harvard Law School in 1997 cum laude and Dartmouth College in 1994 summa cum laude, with highest honors. He serves as a certified arbitrator in the compulsory arbitration program of the Philadelphia Court of of Common Pleas, is a former president of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, board member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, member of the New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and member of the board of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Harvard Law School Alumni Association. He sings Tenor in a semi- professional choir in Philadelphia specializing in Baroque music and has four children, including a son with severe special needs. Read our Constant Contact notice here.