Jewish students accuse American university of ignoring antisemitism on campus, punishing whistleblowers

Jewish students filed a complaint Wednesday with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, alleging that Washington, D.C.’s American University failed to address antisemitism on campus and even punished those who came forward to report the harassment.

The complaint was filed on behalf of a dozen students by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and alleges that Jewish students have been targeted by “discrimination, harassment, and intimidation” because of their “ethnic identity and Israeli national origin.” Students reportedly have been “shunned” in the classroom, dorm doors of Jewish students were vandalized with swastikas, one student was allegedly spat on several times and posters of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 have been torn down repeatedly.

“The University has failed to meet its legal obligations or enforce its own rules of conduct to protect these students, which, if enforced, would make AU’s campus a safer and more welcoming environment for its Jewish and Israeli students,” the complaint reads. “Even worse, the University has chosen to further harass and discriminate against several of these students by subjecting them to a baseless disciplinary hearing for alleged harassment and disorderly conduct based on their recording acts of vandalism.”

The complaint claims that several students, who filmed their peers tearing down posters showing Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, were subjected to disciplinary hearings in November 2023 after reporting the incidents to the school. School officials allegedly claimed that the “students tearing down hostage posters … were merely ‘removing unauthorized postings’” and charged the Jewish students with “harassment and disorderly conduct.”

The Brandeis Center disputes the claim in the complaint, arguing that only some of the posters were in an area the school considered “unauthorized” while the rest were all in “authorized locations.” They also noted that university policy states that only school staff may remove posters, not students, and that students who tore down the posters in the “unauthorized” areas then replaced them with their own posters.

“Shamefully, AU has repeatedly chosen to turn a blind eye to the anti-Semitism snowballing on its campus,” Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights under the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, said in a press release. “Not only has the university failed in its legal obligation to protect Jewish students from illegal targeting and harassment, it is attempting to bully those brave enough to speak up.”

American University did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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