ADL report card finds some campuses fixing responses to antisemitism
[IsraelTimes] Survey of 135 schools finds many universities have enacted major policy changes, but many still failing to properly protect Jewish students.
ADL gave A grades to eight schools: Brandeis University, CUNY Queens College, CUNY Brooklyn College, Elon University, Florida International University, University of Alabama, University of Miami, and Vanderbilt University.
Notable improvements were identified at CUNY Queens College, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Michigan State University, SUNY Purchase College, SUNY Rockland Community College, Tufts University, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and Vanderbilt University, all of which moved up by two grades. Harvard, Tufts University and UNC Chapel Hill had previously received failing grades.
The ADL gave failing marks to 13 schools: California Polytechnic State University, DePaul University, Evergreen State College, Haverford College, Loyola University New Orleans, Pitzer College, Pomona College, Portland State University, Scripps College, The New School, University of California – Santa Barbara, University of Illinois – Chicago, and University of Minnesota.
Columbia University and its sister school, Barnard College, both received D grades. While both schools have made progress in enforcing antisemitism policies, violent protests continue to threaten Jewish students, with anti-Israel activists disrupting a History of Modern Israel class at Columbia in January and occupying a building on Barnard’s campus in February.
Deborah Lipstadt: Why I Won’t Teach at Columbia
[TheFreePress] I was Biden’s antisemitism envoy. I had been considering an academic appointment at the Ivy League institution. Not anymore.
Until last week, I had been seriously considering teaching at Columbia University next year as a visiting professor. But I’m now convinced that to do so would be folly—to serve as a prop or a fig leaf. Moreover, I feel doing so would mean putting myself and my students at risk.
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US feds weighing cut to $50 million in Columbia U contracts due to antisemitism
[IsraelTimes] Antisemitism task force also reviewing $5 billion in grants to NY institution; Trump threatens funding to colleges that ‘allow illegal protests’
Anti-Israel demonstrators protest former PM Bennett at Columbia University
[IsraelTimes] More than 200 pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters gather in front of Columbia University in New York to demonstrate against former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who was at the campus for a speaking engagement. None of the individual protesters at the event, many of whom wore masks or traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, agree to speak with AFP journalists.
“The decision to host a man with such a violent and openly discriminatory record sends a message that the university values some voices over others,” a spokesperson for Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition — one of the groups taking part in the protest — says in a statement.
Anti-Israel activists release new footage of Columbia building takeover last year
[IsraelTimes] An anti-Israel activist group releases new footage of protesters preparing to clash with police inside a Columbia University campus building last year. The protest group, Unity of Fields, says it is releasing the footage in response to the expulsion of a student involved in the takeover. The footage comes out as the Trump administration threatens the university’s funding due to antisemitism. Unity of Fields, formerly known as Palestine Action US, is a hardline anti-Israel activist group that is not formally tied to the campus. The group has released other footage related to Columbia in the past, such as anti-Israel vandalization around the campus.
Protesters forcibly occupied the building, Hamilton Hall, last spring, prompting a police crackdown and dozens of arrests. After police cleared the building last year, the NYPD said many of those arrested were not university students or affiliates. Most had their charges dropped.
Columbia University Instructor Cancels Class for Anti-Israel Protest, Day After Radicals Storm Campus Building
[FreeBeacon] Philosophy lecturer Conor Cullen has signed letters expressing ‘solidarity’ with Columbia pro-Hamas encampments
Yale Law School Scholar Is Member of US-Sanctioned Terror Fundraising Organization
[FreeEacon] .Helyeh Doutaghi, deputy director of Yale Law School’s Law and Political Economy Project, placed on “immediate administrative leave” as university investigates allegations of membership in Samidoun, an organization sanctioned by the U.S. government in October in an announcement that described it as a "sham charity" and a "front organization" for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a foreign-designated terrorist organization.
Samidoun’s website indicates that Doutaghi, whom it describes as "a doctoral student of international law and a member of the international Samidoun Network," delivered a speech in Iran at a Samidoun-sponsored screening of the film Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight. Abdallah, the founder of the Lebanese Armed Military Forces, was sentenced by a French court to life in prison in 1987, convicted of complicity in the 1982 murders of U.S. military attaché Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov, as well as involvement in the attempted 1984 assassination of the then-American consul general in Strasbourg, Robert Homme.
US feds open civil rights probe into antisemitism at University of California public system
[IsraelTimes] The US Department of Justice opens a civil rights investigation into antisemitism at the University of California, one of the leading public university systems in the US.
The federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism says the probe will investigate whether the university system has violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination.
“This Department of Justice will always defend Jewish Americans, protect civil rights, and leverage our resources to eradicate institutional Antisemitism in our nation’s universities,” says US Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
Most federal probes into campus antisemitism are filed under Title VI, which prohibits discrimination in institutions that receive federal funding.
Jewish legal groups are also seeking to expand the use of Title II, a law that prohibits discrimination in public spaces.
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