NYU reaches settlement with US Department of Education regarding antisemitism complaint

On Sept. 15, 2020, New York University (NYU) agreed upon a settlement with the U.S. Department of Education over a complaint filed the previous year alleging the university mishandled incidents of antisemitism on campus. A student filed the complaint in April 2019 after NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine received the President’s Service Award, despite the fact that a member of the group had been charged with assault on a pro-Israel student during a celebration of Israel’s 70th anniversary the year prior, according to the Jewish Journal. 

Key Players

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a college student activist organization founded in 2001, with chapters on campuses throughout the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. According to the Anti-Defamation League, SJP is most known for disseminating anti-Israel propaganda featuring “inflammatory” and “combative” rhetoric. The group has campaigned for boycotts and divestment from corporations who deal with Israel and has organized events that center around Israel’s human rights record toward Palestinians. SJP members have been implicated in a number of antisemitic harassment cases, including a 2014 incident in which a chapter at Vassar College was forced to apologize after sharing Nazi-era propaganda online. 

Adela Cojab Moadeb was an NYU student at the time she filed the complaint. Cojab, who is of Jewish Mexican descent, told the New York Post that she felt that “giving a humanitarian award to SJP is equivalent to giving such an award to the Ku Klux Klan, or any other racist organization.” 

Further Details

NYU SJP announced in an April 4, 2019, Facebook post that it would be receiving the President’s Service Award for “exemplary contributions to the NYU community.” The post features a screenshot of an email to NYU SJP, explaining that the award aims to “recognize outstanding NYU students who have made significant contributions to the university community in the areas of learning, leadership, and quality of student life.” 

“Despite the pushback we have received from our institution, we agree that we have made ‘significant contributions to the university community in the areas of learning, leadership, and quality of student life.’ Anyway, New York University, divest from Israeli apartheid,” NYU SJP wrote in its Facebook post.

Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, an organization committed to combating antisemitism worldwide, balked at the university’s decision to award SJP for its activity. “The last thing SJP deserves is an award, and if it is true that they received one we urge the NYU administration to rescind it immediately,” she said in an April 2019 statement in the Jewish Journal. On April 27, 2018, SJP tried to shut down a rave celebrating Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. Amid the ruckus, an Israeli flag was burned in Washington Square Park, and fliers featuring assault rifles were circulated to partygoers, according to the New York Post. Two students were arrested, including an SJP member. 

On April 22, 2019, Cojab filed her complaint against NYU with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR). In November 2019, the OCR announced it would investigate NYU over the matter. 

According to a copy of the settlement obtained by the Jewish Journal, NYU was required to update its Non-Discrimination Anti-Harassment Policy to include a definition of antisemitism as written in the federal executive order on combating antisemitism. 

The order, signed in December 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism: “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” 

The NYU case was the first settlement involving an American university after the order went into effect. NYU’s revised policy will also be required to explain how antisemitism manifests itself on campus, and what action(s) the university will take in instances of antisemitism, including those that involve student clubs. NYU was required to submit its policy by Sept. 15, 2020, and provide proof to the OCR that its policy was adopted by Oct. 15. 

The agreement further required NYU to host town halls during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years to address antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on campus; in addition, the school must provide diversity training to students, faculty, and staff during those academic years. NYU was required to meet with Cojab by Oct. 31, 2020, and increase outreach to the Jewish community on campus in general. 

According to Inside Higher Ed, a lawyer representing Cojab believes the settlement could have “wide-ranging implications affecting how universities handle campus debates over Middle East policy, to the point of disciplining students.” The settlement also raised concerns from campus Free Speech advocates that the case could stifle criticism of Israel on college campuses. 

Outcome

US Department of Education completes review, finds no wrongdoing on the part of NYU

In a statement to the Jewish Journal, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said the following: 

“We are pleased that the U.S. Department of Education has decided to end its review without finding any wrongdoing by NYU. NYU has long been understood as a place that is welcoming to and supportive of members of the Jewish community. For that reason, the university has gladly agreed to several steps that would bolster our longstanding commitment to opposing and responding to anti-Semitism.”

Cojab, others express concern the settlement will not sufficiently address antisemitism on US campuses

Cojab, who later became an organizer for the Maccabee Task Force, an organization founded in 2015 to stop the spread of antisemitism on college campuses, expressed mixed emotions regarding the settlement. While she told the Journal that she believes NYU “[knows] there are things they can improve on,” Cojab expressed concern that the deadlines were unrealistic. As of January 2021, the university has yet to reach out to her regarding their proposed meeting. 

“I wouldn’t want this agreement to just be a way for them to get the OCR case out of the way instead of actually be introspective, look at their system and see what the system is promoting,” Cojab said.

NYU graduate and Daniel Pearl Foundation President Judea Pearl said in a statement to the Jewish Journal that the settlement is “a milestone decision that will soon affect other campuses, such as USC and UCLA,” adding that he was “afraid the victory will be short-lived, because the word Zionism is not mentioned explicitly in the agreement.” In January 2020, OCR announced plans to investigate two instances of antisemitism at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Liora Rez, executive director of the Stop Antisemitism.org watchdog group, also said in a statement to the Jewish Journal that she believes the NYU case to be “just the start of many legal complaints we will be seeing by others thanks to the protection Jewish Americans now have under the President’s new Executive Order on antisemitism.”

As per Inside Higher Ed, Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a campus Free Speech advocacy group, said the Department of Education should take measures to ensure colleges aren’t tolerating antisemitism on campus. Still, he worried that the definition in the executive order was too comprehensive and could impact Free Speech “if students are punished or labeled as harassers for making clearly political arguments” regarding Israeli human rights abuses.