The Brandeis Center and our partners at StandWithUs and ADL jointly filed a federal complaint against Ohio State University (OSU), alleging a pervasive anti-Semitic climate for Jewish students. Pratt Institute removed a BDS resolution from its Academic Senate agenda after receiving a letter from LDB warning that passage “would trigger [New York State] to divest all state funding from Pratt. And NBC News sought LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus’s comment on a major feature about anti-Semitism escalating across America’s college campuses.

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‘Proactively Open Investigations,’ Kenneth Marcus Tells U.S. Dept. of Education

NBC News contacted LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus for a feature article about the pro-Hamas encampments that have been sweeping American university campuses.

Marcus centered an important point about the U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) – the office which he used to lead – should be doing right now: “The department’s office of civil rights should be seizing the moment and taking charge of this situation. It’s not enough merely to wait passively for complaints to come in and log them and indicate that investigations have been opened.”

Marcus continued: “They should be proactively opening investigations rather than waiting.”

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LDB, ADL, and StandWithUs File Complaint Against OSU for Hostile, Pervasive Anti-Semitism

The Brandeis Center, Anti-Defamation League, and StandWithUs submitted a formal complaint with OCR against Ohio State University, alleging the university has failed to address the severe discrimination and harassment of Jewish and Israeli students following the October 7 massacre in Israel, which fostered “a hostile anti-Semitic environment that is now pervasive” at Ohio State.

The groups allege that since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, Jewish students at OSU have faced a litany of anti-Semitic incidents, including physical assaults, threatening graffiti in classrooms and university facilities, as well as the removal of posters and photos of kidnapped Israelis. The complaint seeks remedies under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“There is a clear, direct, and indisputable correlation between lack of accountability and rising levels of anti-Semitism,” stated LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus. “Schools must act immediately to address incidents and hold violators accountable. Unfortunately, schools like Ohio State that continue to sweep incidents under the rug are getting worse by the day….Schools must uphold the law and address each and every incident of antisemitic discrimination and harassment, or the problem will continue to snowball.”

The complaint urges OCR to compel the university’s administration to implement measures necessary to secure the safety of Jewish and Israeli students at OSU, including by issuing a public statement condemning anti-Semitic hostility on campus and devoting more resources and increasing security measure to deter future attacks. The complaint also urges the university to incorporate the IHRA working definition of antisemitism into its campus policies concerning discrimination, and to provide mandatory anti-Semitism training to university administrators, faculty, students and staff.

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LDB Letter Moves Pratt Institute to Back Down from Holding BDS Vote on Passover

Brandeis Center Director of Corporate Initiatives and Senior Counsel Rory Lancman sent a letter to Pratt Institute’s Board Chair, President and Academic Senate President. The requests the Academic Senate to withdraw a BDS resolution – or risk running afoul of New York State law that “would trigger the state to divest all state funding from Pratt.”

“Jewish faculty were being excluded from having any say because the measure was being introduced and potentially voted on during their religious holiday, when most if not all will be with family and friends,” Hon. Rory Lancman told the New York Post. “The anti-Semitic proposal is so broadly written that it could even ban Jewish community groups such as Hillel and Chabad from campus.” LDB represents staff and students opposed to the proposal.

“Holding a vote to boycott Israel at that Passover meeting is positively obscene,” declared Lancman in the April 19 letter to Pratt board of trustees Chairman Garry Hattem, President Frances Bronet and Academic Senate President Uzma Rizvi, an archaeological professor.

Lancman warned that Pratt’s refusal to accommodate the religious beliefs of Pratt’s Jewish students and staff by postponing a meeting that particularly impacts them as Jews would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covering higher education institutions that receive federal funding. He noted that a state executive order implemented first by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2016 and continued by Gov. Kathy Hochul bars New York State government from doing business with institutions that support the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

“Any such boycott is illegal and, of course, among other things, would trigger the state to divest (oh, the irony) all state funding from Pratt,” Lancman wrote in LDB’s letter.

In response to the Brandeis Center’s letter, Pratt ultimately relented and removed the BDS resolution vote from its Academic Senate agenda.

The Post sought Lancman’s comment regarding a second anti-Semitic incident – involving the same professor who heads Pratt’s Academic Senate – concerning graphic and horrendous “Red Hands” vandalism to a tree on Pratt’s campus. “What better way to terrorize your Jewish students and faculty into submission than maintaining a display in the middle of your campus representing Jews getting lynched?” Lancman rhetorically asked the Post.

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Alyza Lewin Urges Vanderbilt to Admit Jewish Student Group to Campus Multicultural Organization

Vanderbilt University has denied its local Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter membership in the Multicultural Leadership Council branch of its student government.

The Algemeiner, in its coverage of the story, referred to insights from Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin about a similar incident faced by Duke’s SSI chapter in 2021. At the time, LDB advised Duke’s SSI chapter and sent a letter warning the university about its exposure to legal liability should it fail to reverse the student government’s discriminatory decision not to grant the group recognition as an official student organization.

“Grant them the same access,” Lewin said at the time, warning of potential civil rights violations. “Treat them no differently than any other student recognized organization. If the university chooses not to intervene and does not make sure that SSI gets equal access and it is understood to be no different than any other organization, there could be potential legal liability for the university.”

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Rachel Lerman Discusses LDB Anti-Semitism Lawsuit Against UC Berkeley on Bloomberg Podcast

Brandeis Center General Counsel and Vice Chair L. Rachel Lerman joined Bloomberg Law’s “On the Merits” podcast for an episode titled “Why Lawsuits Against Campus Antisemitism May Succeed.”

Lerman discussed the Brandeis Center’s pending lawsuit against the University of California Berkeley over the “longstanding unchecked spread of anti-Semitism” on Berkeley’s campus.

“After October 7 it became dramatically worse. We are speaking to many students…who are telling us of their experiences on campus. A couple of them have been assaulted, some of them have been threatened, all of them have had to deal with the ongoing rallies…and different kind of pro-Hamas events going on at the school,” said Lerman.

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‘Not Pro-Palestinian, This is Pro-Hate’ Declares Marcus on Fox News

Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus appeared on Fox News Live, the day following the Islamic Republic of Iran’s attack against Israel – to discuss protesters in Chicago erupting into applause to the news of the attack.

“These are the moments when the anti-Israel activists give up the game….They are gleeful about an escalation of war, about an attack on the Jewish state. Peace activists don’t praise escalations of war. Human rights activists don’t support attacks on civilian populations,” asserted Marcus. “What we’re seeing when it comes to the organized anti-Zionist movement cannot be understood as anything other than an organized hate group or anti-Semitism organization.”

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Kenneth Marcus Praises Congressional Hearing, Making it Harder for Columbia ‘Administrators to Gaslight Students’

Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus provided insights to Politico, ahead of the U.S. House Committee on Education & the Workforce hearing on campus anti-Semitism with Columbia University President Minouche Shafik.

Marcus praised the Committee’s decision to hold another public hearing on campus anti-Semitism. He said the heightened awareness from Congressional scrutiny greatly benefits Jewish students, who have faced anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination long before the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel triggered nationwide campus demonstrations.

“This has made it harder for administrators to gaslight students and pretend that the problem doesn’t exist,” declared Marcus. “It’s also created pressures that have led some administrators to take useful actions, but they’re still too few and far between.”

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Marcus Quoted Extensively in Free Press Article Examining Results from OCR Anti-Semitism Complaints and Independent Lawsuits

The Free Press quoted Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus extensively in a feature broadly examining anti-Semitism complaints filed with the U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), along with independent lawsuits. The story describes the Brandeis Center as “the driving force behind much of this litigation.”

“The goal in these cases is to change the behavior of university administrators,” Marcus said, “so they will deter this sort of activity, which is not tolerated toward any other group.” Responding to the question of whether these legal challenges work, Marcus pointed to LDB’s landmark resolution agreement reached between the federal government and the University of Vermont, spurred by LDB’s Title VI anti-Semitism complaint: “No one is saying we’ve cured antisemitism in Vermont or that the work can stop there,” Marcus said. “What people are saying is that the university is dramatically more responsive to antisemitic incidents than it was before.”

The piece included Marcus’s views that the DEI ideological approach as a whole needs to be dismantled if Jews are to be fully protected from anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination: “As long as DEI programs are built upon the dichotomy of oppressors and oppressed, Jews will too often be defined as oppressors and told to own their privilege,” he said. “This entire ideological approach needs to be dismantled.”

The article also mentioned LDB’s rapid staff expansion following October 7.

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Jewish Press Includes LDB in Select Group of Organizations, Urging Readers to ‘Donate Jewish’

The Brandeis Center thanks the Jewish Press for including our organization in its select group of pro-Jewish and Israel organizations to consider donating to this year.

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