Photo from Flickr/Lars Kiesow. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law called on the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to extend their supervision of New York University (NYU) in light of recent antisemitic incidents that have occurred on campus.
In September 2020, NYU had agreed to a settlement with OCR after then-student Adela Cojab filed a complaint the year before alleging the university had improperly handled antisemitism on campus. She had filed the complaint after NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter received the university’s President’s Service Award in April 2019 despite a member from the group being charged in April 2018 for assaulting a pro-Israel student during a Yom HaAtzmaut rave. Part of that agreement included OCR supervising NYU to make sure it complied with the terms of the settlement; that supervision expired on May 31.
Brandeis Center President Alyza D. Lewin and Senior Counsel Arthur Traldi wrote in a May 31 letter to OCR that NYU continues to have an “anti-Semitism problem.” “As widely reported, a dozen student organizations at NYU’s law school signed a letter defending terrorist violence against Israeli civilians and engaging in classical anti-Semitic tropes about the ‘Zionist grip on the media,’” the letter stated. “Jewish students who complained were ridiculed and called ‘babies.’” Additionally, Lewin and Traldi noted that there have been recent instances of antisemitic graffiti––including swastikas––on NYU’s buildings and that NYU Law’s Review of Law and Social Change endorsed “the anti-Semitic BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement.”
“NYU’s President recently issued a statement denouncing the conduct that prompted the most recent complaints,” Lewin and Traldi wrote. “That statement, however, failed to recognize that for many students at NYU, Zionism is an integral component of their Jewish identity and their ethnic and ancestral heritage and that these students must be able to fully engage in the University’s opportunities while openly expressing identification with Israel. NYU must commit to safeguarding the ability of Jewish students to fully engage in campus life without having to hide this key component of their Jewish identity.” They added that “these continuing expressions of anti-Semitism reflect that until NYU fully complies with the Resolution Agreement, OCR must not abdicate its oversight responsibilities.”
Cojab, who is currently studying at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law and co-hosts the “American-ish Show: Daughters of the Diaspora,” backed the Brandeis Center’s call for more OCR oversight. “In their own resolution agreement, it says: 1. They will adopt a new policy on antisemitism, 2. That the policy will have examples on even what is not antisemitism, and [the] third part is trainings that have to do with the policy and how to implement it,” she told the Journal in a phone interview. “They implemented a policy only nine months ago; they were supposed to implement it two whole years ago. So they only have nine months of data to work with. They also didn’t really publicize that there’s a new policy so how can people express content or discontent with it? There’s already been students who have been discontent with NYU’s reaction to antisemitism in the last three months and they didn’t even the policy to point to and they didn’t implement any trainings––not a single one––on their new policy. It’s just kind of like OCR ending their observation period now is premature. There is no data to see if NYU complied, let alone if it was effective.”
A Google Forms letter sent to NYU Law School of Law Dean Trevor Morrison from anonymous Jewish students expressing concern that a member of NYU Law Students for Justice in Palestine (LSJP) chapter who recently graduated had used COASES––the student law listserv––to say: “to all the Zionists, we’re keeping receipts” and that this member and other LSJP members “proudly and explicitly justified the targeting of family and friends of members of our law school as ‘the Palestinian right to resist occupation’ and refused to condemn the Tel Aviv terror attack because “Palestinians are not obligated to engage in racialized ‘nonviolence’ theory.” The LSJP member also liked a social media post stating “Long live the Intifada” after the terror attack, per the letter. The letter also noted that LSJP had said in a listserv email that the “Zionist grip on the media is omnipresent.”
“It is our contention that speech that, in any other context and by other speakers, would have been swiftly condemned as the glorification and incitement of violence was instead supported by a number of student groups – each representing a large swath of the student body – in part because the speakers have been institutionally distinguished,” the letter stated. “Absent clarification to the contrary, NYU Law, through its chosen representatives, has made clear to the broader NYU community that it is commendable – or, at the very least, acceptable – to advocate for violent resistance against Israelis.”
According to NYU Local, a student-run blog, Morrison responded to the letter by issuing an email “stating that within the NYU community, debate should be conducted in a respectful manner” and that “phrases like ‘Zionist grip on the media’ was close to the antisemitic trope that Jewish people control the media.” Morrison also acknowledged that “the administration may well choose to consider alternative communications platforms with different functionalities.” NYU President Andrew Hamilton also issued a statement calling the “Zionist grip” comment “profoundly troubling.”
LSJP tweeted in response to the letter at the time, “We are disappointed that some of our classmates, the administration, & media have focused on targeting students who speak out against apartheid, rather than condemning the violent Israeli occupation.”
We are disappointed that some of our classmates, the administration, & media have focused on targeting students who speak out against apartheid, rather than condemning the violent Israeli occupation. Full statement here: https://t.co/nk0GfFzoBr pic.twitter.com/BlzyBKdge2
— NYU LSJP (@NYULSJP) April 25, 2022
An NYU law student told the Journal that he and another student were collecting signatures for the letter when he started receiving harassing messages online that contained “threats” and stated things like “from the river to the sea.” The student claimed he told the administration about it around a month and a half ago but hasn’t heard back from them. “I know other schools in the past have had a situation where a student has been harassed through Google Forms and they were able to find out who it was because it was on their servers, so it just seems clear that NYU isn’t really looking after its Jewish students,” the student said. “If this happened to another group, there’s just no way that an administration would just sit idly by letting students get ran over and harassed.” The student also expressed disappointment that the university’s subsequent investigation into the harassment has been “non-transparent.” When reached for comment, an NYU Law spokesperson pointed to Morrison’s past statements on the matter.
The student added that “a lot of students don’t feel particularly safe” on campus. “People are scared to even say, ‘I stand with Israel.’”
A recent NYU Law graduate told the Journal that toward the end of his tenure at the school “you could already sense the sentiments shifting away from Jewish support and in other areas, so the fact that Alyza [Lewin] and the Brandeis Center are really taking a lead here––I don’t think people are really grasping the importance of this case because I think everyone’s going to follow NYU’s actions.”
Cojab lamented that “not much has changed” since she graduated from NYU. “Students feel as disconnected from the administration, students feel as unsafe as they did before,” she said, adding that NYU’s antisemitism policy “doesn’t include anti-Zionism in their definition of antisemitism, and that’s very problematic… if what I went through at NYU two years ago wouldn’t have fallen under their new antisemitism policy, then what’s the point of their policy? It’s just a pleasantry.”
NYU spokesman John Beckman defended the university, telling The Algemeiner that the Brandeis Center’s claims are false and that the university “met every mutually-agreed upon deadline; annually submitted reports to OCR about student conduct cases involving discrimination or harassment; and submitted its proposed revisions to its non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy for OCR’s review and approval on time, promptly adopted the approved version, and sent it to everyone on campus a year ago.” Beckman also touted the university as a “leader” in fighting antisemitism on campus, citing an April antisemitism summit held on campus as an example.
This article has been updated.
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