Did the Brandeis Center just have its most extraordinary month ever? It certainly looks that way. We announced we are suing Harvard University for leaving “cruel anti-Semitic bullying, harassment, and discrimination unaddressed for years.” We also announced an anti-Semitism lawsuit against Origins High School in New York City. We filed new Title VI complaints with the U.S. Dept. of Education (ED) Office for Civil Rights against four more institutions – the University of Massachusetts Amherst and three California schools: Pomona College, Occidental College , and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In a significant victory, a K-12 school in North Carolina agreed to settle an ED anti-Semitism complaint filed by LDB. And we expanded our previously-filed complaints against the Berkeley Unified School District and the University of California, Berkeley. In this jam-packed edition of the Brandeis Brief, we break all that activity down for you. LDB Sues Harvard for ‘Tolerating Rampant and Pervasive Anti-Semitism’ The Brandeis Center announced it is suing Harvard University for leaving “cruel anti-Semitic bullying, harassment, and discrimination” unaddressed for years, pre- and post-10/7. According to the complaint, “when Harvard is presented with incontrovertible evidence of anti-Semitic conduct, it ignores and tolerates it. Harvard’s permissive posture towards anti-Semitism is the opposite of its aggressive enforcement of the same anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to protect other minorities.” As detailed in the complaint, Harvard students and faculty have called for violence against Jews and celebrated Hamas’ terrorism. Student protestors have occupied and vandalized buildings, interrupted classes and exams, and made the campus unbearable for Jewish and Israeli classmates. Jewish students are bullied and spat on, intimidated, and threatened, and subject to verbal and physical harassment. For their part, professors have explicitly supported anti-Jewish and anti-Israel terrorism and spread anti-Semitic propaganda in their classes. “For years, Harvard’s leaders have allowed the school to become a breeding ground for hateful anti-Jewish and radical anti-Israel views,” stated LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus. “An outside investigator warned of the problem more than a year ago, Harvard Kennedy School’s Dean acknowledged it, and yet crickets. When are university leaders going to learn that in order to prevent your school from becoming a cesspool of anti-Semitism action is required? Schools must hold students and faculty accountable. They must follow through with public consequences when Jews are harassed and discriminated against just as they would for any other minority group, in keeping with settled law.” LDB Lawsuit Targets Anti-Semitism in NYC Public School The Louis D. Brandeis Center and law firm Walden Macht & Haran filed a lawsuit against Origins High School, the City of New York, the New York City Department of Education, and senior city and school officials on behalf of a public-school teacher and a campus administrator who have been harassed for months. Defendants did nothing to address the problem. Instead, they fired the Jewish teacher and the administrator who stood up for her. The suit describes acts of anti-Semitism and hate speech against Jewish people generally, and teacher Danielle Kaminsky specifically, including students marching through the campus chanting “Fuck the Jews,” aggrandizing Adolf Hitler (and referring to him as the G.O.A.T. or “greatest of all time”), drawing swastikas on a Jewish student’s property, and exclaiming to a Jewish teacher that they “want to kill all jews.” The complaint also details how school officials, especially the Interim Acting Principal, sought to shield bigoted students from disciplinary action, even when a student brought explosives to school after engaging in other anti-Semitic acts. The complaint alleges that DOE’s complicity caused the anti-Semitism to fester, and that some of the bigoted cabal of students have started attacking and assaulting LGBTQ+ members of the school community. “It seems to have been a complete abdication of responsibility, and then an attempted cover up,” stated LDB Senior Counsel Mark Goldfeder. LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus added: “Above all else, safety must be a school’s #1 priority. Yet, New York City and Origins officials not only ignored violent, targeted threats, they attempted a complete cover-up. They shielded dangerous perpetrators, punished whistleblowers, and left Jewish teachers and students utterly vulnerable.” LDB Files Title VI Complaints Against Four More Higher Education Institutions In the past month, the Brandeis Center has filed Title VI civil rights complaints to the U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) asking the Office to investigate anti-Semitism at four institutions of higher education – the University of Massachusetts Amherst and three California colleges: Pomona, Occidental, and UC Santa Barbara. “Following the law, holding perpetrators accountable, and issuing consequences is not rocket science. It’s beyond shameful that we have to call in the Department of Education to get a school to address a violent anti-Semitic assault and ensure other students aren’t similarly attacked,” stated LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus in reference to the UMass complaint. “Jewish students at Pomona and Occidental are hiding in their dorms and avoiding their own campus rather than risk verbal and physical attacks. These colleges know full well this is happening,” Marcus stated. “But instead of enforcing the law and their own policies, they are caving to the anti-Semitic mob and letting them bully, harass, and intimidate Jewish students. Anti-Semitism left unaddressed will not go away. It will only snowball and escalate until the problem is faced head on as the law requires.” “At UCSB, what has been allowed to happen to Tessa [Veksler, UCSB Student Government President] over many months – shaming, harassing, and shunning a student to try to make her disavow a part of her Judaism – is shameful and illegal,” stated Marcus. “Sadly, this is not the first time we are seeing this mob behavior against a Jewish student elected by their student body to serve. It is incumbent upon UC Santa Barbara and all universities to say enough is enough.” North Carolina K-12 School Settles U.S. Ed. Dept. OCR Complaint Filed by LDB A North Carolina public charter school agreed to settle a U.S. Department of Education investigation into severe, persistent, and pervasive anti-Semitic bullying that went unaddressed in one of its charter schools for two full academic years. The settlement requires the school to take concrete steps to address the systemic anti-Semitism it allowed to fester in its community – e.g., publicizing a statement that it does not tolerate “acts of harassment based on a student’s actual or perceived race, color, or national origin including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics (e.g. antisemitism),” and conducting annual trainings of school staff and administrators on anti-discrimination law under Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics. According to the settlement, a non-Jewish eighth-grade boy faced daily abuse after he wore the Israeli Olympic jersey of his favorite Major League Baseball player. From that moment on, he was treated with vicious, severe and relentless harassment and bullying by a group of nine classmates. The bullying occurred daily for two years. He was also threatened and physically assaulted. Officials at the middle school were fully aware of the problem yet they refused to take steps to protect the boy. “I think this case is a reminder that the problem of anti-Semitism, whether it’s in K-12 schools or on college campuses, should not be shoved under the rug,” said Brandeis Center Director of Legal Initiatives Denise Katz-Prober. “It needs to be addressed head-on by educators, administrators and the Department of Education.” U.S. Dept. of Ed. Opens Investigation Into Anti-Semitism at Berkeley K-12 Schools The U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights opened a formal investigation in May into a complaint filed by the Brandeis Center and Anti-Defamation League alleging that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) has failed to address non-stop “severe and persistent” bullying and harassment of Jewish students in classrooms, hallways, school yards, and on walkouts since October 7, 2023. One day before OCR opened the investigation, LDB and ADL expanded their jointly-filed complaint, sounding the alarm that the already-hostile environment for Jewish students is taking a frightening turn for the worse. For example, after the original complaint was filed, a student faced retaliation by peers and anti-Semitic graffiti appeared in a Berkeley High School bathroom and at the bus stop used by many Berkeley High School students to get to and from school. And the day after OCR announced its investigation, BUSD’s Superintendent testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, denying that her school district had an unaddressed anti-Semitism problem. LDB and ADL’s expanded complaint provided a basis for the Committee’s questions. “They’re breeding the next generation of anti-Semites,” stated LDB Senior Counsel Robin N. Pick, who is overseeing Brandeis’s complaint, about BUSD’s administrators. “In some ways, it’s worse, because these are children as young as five or six years old. They’re captive audiences in these classrooms. They see their teachers as authority figures. They’re extremely impressionable. They don’t have the level of freedom as students do in college.” As a result, Pick warns, what’s happening in Berkeley classrooms amounts to “indoctrination.” LDB and JAFE Expand Lawsuit Complaint Against UC Berkeley The Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE) – one of the three membership organizations it established to help students, faculty, and parents join its cases as anonymous plaintiffs – expanded their lawsuit complaint against UC Berkeley, adding additional anti-Semitism allegations to the suit. “As we’ve continued to talk to students – graduate students, law students, undergraduates – we decided to amend our complaint to add new allegations regarding the campus atmosphere, which we believe is a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students,” stated LDB Vice Chair and Berkeley Law alumna L. Rachel Lerman. “What we’re seeking is injunctive relief mainly – we want a court to tell the school, ‘follow the law, enforce your rules.’ And we have found that sometimes this is very effective, sometimes we can reach a settlement agreement with the university or sometimes it has to play itself out in court.” LDB Declares AAA a Potential Game-Changer for Jewish Students The House approved the long-awaited Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses. The fate of the bill awaits a decision by the Senate to bring the bill to a floor debate. Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus commended the House decision: “This is the game-changing response that we’ve been waiting for. It finally establishes as a matter of law that Jewish students are protected under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Until now, this has been only a matter of informal guidance and an executive order. It also provides for the consistent, transparent use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and ensures that it will be applied consistent with the First Amendment. “The legislation also gives the force of law to the Trump Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism. The Biden administration has said that they’re following this Order, but now it is formalized. Moreover, the Biden administration has long promised to codify the IHRA definition via regulation, but they have repeatedly missed their self-imposed deadlines. “From a federal perspective, this legislation won’t change current practice so much as it will reinforce it. From a university perspective, however, there are few U.S. universities that are consistently applying the IHRA definition in appropriate cases. This legislation should put a stop to that.” Kenneth Marcus Explains Recent U.S. Ed. Dept. OCR Anti-Semitism Guidance in Chronicle of Higher Education The Chronicle of Higher Education article emphasizes the Brandeis Center’s insights on recent OCR guidance on discrimination – including anti-Semitism – based on real or perceived shared ancestry characteristics. “This letter is a signal to colleges that OCR is very much open for business. It shows that it is actively pursuing antisemitism and other ethnoreligious cases,” declared LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus. The Chronicle of Higher Education reaches an extremely influential higher education audience. To Marcus, OCR’s citation of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, along with another that references a Q&A on President Trump’s Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism, “clarif[ies] that this administration remains committed to President Trump’s executive order.” Taken together, they show that the IHRA Definition “is not something institutions can choose to adopt,” Marcus said, but a principle “that is woven into the regulatory fabric of the agency.” Marcus has been pushing Congress to pass the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would codify the IHRA Definition. LDB and Others Prevent Showing of Anti-Semitic Film at Washington, D.C. High School The Brandeis Center, American Jewish Committee and JCRC of Greater Washington jointly-filed an amicus brief in federal court case, supporting a Washington, D.C. high school’s decision to ban the screening of an anti-Semitic documentary. One day later, the student group that had sued to compel the school to screen the film “The Occupation of the American Mind” narrated by Roger Waters withdrew its request for a preliminary injunction that, if granted, would have allowed it to show the film. “High schools should not be sanctioning movies, teacher lesson plans, or any ‘educational’ activities that present a one-sided, biased perspective, often laced with anti-Semitic tropes about Israel and Jews. That is not education,” stated LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus. “Schools have every right to exclude anti-Israel propaganda.” NYT Interviews Rachel Lerman on Lack of Consequences for Anti-Semitic Faculty and Administrators In a recent analysis of the lack of firings of educators accused of anti-Semitism, the New York Times sought insights from Brandeis Center Vice Chair L. Rachel Lerman. LDB and ADL’s jointly-filed Title VI federal complaint filed against Berkely Unified School District (BUSD) argues that the district has “refused” to discipline teachers, including some who framed the Hamas attack as “resistance” or called Israel an “apartheid state” in their classrooms. The U.S. Dept. of Education recently opened an investigation into BUSD based on LDB’s complaint. Lerman stated that many Jewish families feel that if another group were to face similar targeting in schools, “We would see results. It’s not about silencing speech. It’s about what’s appropriate in the classroom under the school’s own rules and California’s own laws.” LDB Hosts Capitol Hill Briefing Highlighting the Spread of Anti-Semitism in K-12 Schools The Brandeis Center hosted a Capitol Hill briefing titled “Fighting Antisemitism in K-12 School” in early May. The panel discussion was moderated by Brandeis Center Director of Legal Initiatives Denise Katz-Prober and featured Director of Legal Investigation Marci Lerner Miller and Senior Counsel Mark Goldfeder. “Some of the anti-Semitism we are seeing in elementary and secondary schools involves traditional and classic manifestations, while some of it resembles what we are seeing in higher education, with middle and high schoolers emulating their older siblings to target Jews on the basis of their shared ancestry connected to Israel,” Katz-Prober explained. “And some aspects of the problem are different – coming from teacher unions or school-generated problems with curriculum.” Read the full blog post, authored by LDB Director of Policy Education Emma Enig, who also produced the Congressional Briefing. Play videoTextBlockModalTitle × Your browser does not support the video tag. Alyza Lewin to Feature in Touro University Webinar (June 19) Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin is among the featured panelists in a webinar titled “Antisemitism on College Campuses and Beyond.” The event is open to the public. The event also features United States District Judge Hon. Roy K. Altman. The presentation’s moderators are Touro University President Dr. Alan Kadish and Touro University Professor of Law and Director of the Jewish Law Institute Samuel J. Levine. Register here. The Touro Talks 2024 Distinguished Lecture Series, virtual lectures is co-sponsored by Robert and Arlene Rosenberg and the Jewish Law Institute at Touro Law Center. Kenneth L. Marcus Discusses Anti-Semitism Awareness Act on NBC News Kenneth L. Marcus Discusses the Anti-Awareness Act in an Instagram Reel Posted by NBC News. The Brandeis Center is Hiring The Brandeis Center is hiring for the full-time positions of Litigation Counsel (New York), Staff Attorney (New York; Washington, D.C.; or remote), and Director of Development ( Washington, D.C.; New York; or remote). Duties, qualifications, and compensation are listed in the Opportunities section of our website.If you meet the qualifications and are passionate about our mission to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all, we want to hear from you. Interested candidates should send resumes and cover letters by electronic mail to info@brandeiscenter.com. For the attorney roles, we suggest also including a writing sample and list of references.