Washington, D.C., February 6, 2025: The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law today announced it will be assembling a team of nearly twenty lawyers and legal staff to litigate exclusively against anti-Semitism. Their bandwidth will be increased by support from outside counsel at major national law firms. This new public interest litigation group, The Center for Legal Innovation (CLI), will use the law to combat all forms of anti-Semitism, such as anti-Semitism that occurs in such sectors as the workplace, housing, healthcare, public accommodations, government services, unions, academia, and corporations. CLI will operate out of the Brandeis Center’s newly opened New York office. The Washington, D.C.-based Brandeis Center also recently opened a satellite office in Los Angeles. Following the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, anti-Semitic incidents have surged throughout the United States. Data released by the FBI in September reveals that anti-Jewish hate crimes increased by 63% in 2023. While Jews make up 2% of the U.S. population, anti-Jewish hate crimes comprised 15% of all hate crimes and 68% of all religion-based hate crimes. And according to the ADL, which keeps its own tally, there were 8,873 anti-Semitic incidents in 2023, a 140% increase from 2022 and the highest number on record since the ADL began tracking such data. Since 10/7, the Brandeis Center has received a tenfold increase in requests for legal support in its campus work alone. “The American Jewish community needs a public interest law firm that takes litigation efforts beyond education-focused Title VI complaints to a host of other areas where Jews are being unfairly and illegally discriminated against and harassed. This means standing up for individual victims as well as going after groups, companies, and organizations that are funding, organizing, and enabling illegal anti-Semitic activity,” stated Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and a renowned university lecturer and scholar. “We have learned from history that we cannot sit idly by. The law is on our side, and we will use it against those threatening Jewish people’s constitutional rights.” CLI will operate under the Brandeis Center’s umbrella as a natural expansion of its current civil rights litigation efforts. While the Brandeis Center is most known for its work combatting K-12 and campus anti-Semitism, such as recent success in litigation against Harvard University, the organization has also filed lawsuits and helped Jews challenge the discriminatory practices of Ben & Jerry’s, the American Studies Association, and the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys. The Brandeis Center’s lawsuit against Ben & Jerry’s serves as one of the biggest defeats to date for the anti-Semitic and discriminatory Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and an enormous victory for civil and human rights. Other divisions of the Brandeis Center will complement these efforts by educating state and federal law enforcement and prosecutors to better recognize anti-Semitic activities. One of CLI’s first cases involves a very disturbing recent incident where a Jewish father and his 5-year-old son were kicked out of an Oakland café for wearing a Star of David hat. The owner of the café told the father his hat was “a violent hat, and you have to leave,” as the man’s son began crying. The café owner then proceeded to call the police. The incident has been met with shock and outrage by local community leaders. Senator Adam Schiff stated, “Kicking a patron out of a restaurant for no reason other than their Jewish ancestry is blatant antisemitism. No one should be turned away because of their faith. This kind of bigotry has no place in California.” CLI is representing the father and son. Serving on CLI’s Advisory Board: Bill Barr: 77th U.S. Attorney General under President H. W. Bush, 85th U.S. Attorney General under President Donald Trump; Paul Clement: 43rd U.S. Solicitor General; Davida Brook: Renowned litigator who secured the historic $787.5 million settlement to resolve Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News and is now representing the New York Times against Microsoft and OpenAI; Rona Kaufman: Professor, Thomas R. Kline Law School, Duquesne University; Alan Levine: President of the Legal Aid Society of New York, chair of the Jewish Theological Seminary Board of Trustees, and senior counsel at Cooley LLP, specializing in complex civil cases, including serving as lead counsel against white-supremacist organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville; Thomas McCarthy: Head of Consovoy McCarthy PLLC, specializing in constitutional law, civil rights disputes, and enforcement of federal statutes; Jonathan Polkes: Former federal prosecutor and co-chair of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP’s global litigation department; Jason Torchinsky: Partner at Holtzman Vogel, experienced in First Amendment freedoms; Erik Jaffe: Partner at Schaerr Jaffe LLP, engaged in more than 150 Supreme Court matters; Brad Karp: Chairman of Paul, Weiss, specialist in complex civil and corporate litigation; and David Perla: Vice Chair of Burford Capital, prominent litigation finance executive. Expert Brandeis Center litigators, which include former criminal prosecutors, a New York City Council Member and New York State Assembly Member, partners at major law firms, heads of prominent litigation departments, and leading experts in constitutional and civil rights law, will be working with the new dedicated CLI hires to advocate for victims of anti-Semitism. Individuals seeking pro-bono counsel and support can reach out to David Dince, Brandeis Center Director of Litigation, at ddince@brandeiscenter.com or 917-509-1203 (mobile), 202-559-9296 (office).