Leading Jewish Civil Rights Group Applauds US Lawmakers Calling on Biden Admin to Resolve Campus Antisemitism Complaints

A leading Jewish civil rights group on Tuesday applauded a bipartisan group of 84 members of the US Congress for issuing a letter that urged the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to clear its backlog of complaints alleging antisemitism on US college campuses.

The missive, first reported by Jewish Insider, said the lawmakers are “deeply concerned” that efforts to resolve thousands of complaints alleging antisemitic discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act have not kept pace with a 41 percent increase in antisemitic incidents that targeted students, faculty, and staff.

“Jewish students, like all students, deserve equal rights to an education free from discrimination and harassment because of their identity,” the letter said. “We encourage the department to continue to swiftly investigate other pending cases and to continue to enforce federal civil rights law against antisemitism in all its forms.”

The letter also endorsed an executive order on combating antisemitism signed by former US President Donald Trump that affirmed civil rights protections for Jewish students.

On Tuesday, Kenneth Marcus, former Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights at OCR and founder of the Brandeis Center, told The Algemeiner that bipartisan congressional support for resolving antisemitism cases on campus is crucial for prompting OCR to act.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said. “Students have to wait months and often years for a resolution of their complaints. In many cases, they will graduate before OCR addresses them, which means that they won’t get any sort of appropriate remedy whatsoever. Even if they are still in college, it’s already back to school, and there are colleges and universities that should be fixing problems but aren’t doing so because OCR is still dithering about their complaints.”

Marcus explained that the normal time frame for responding to a civil rights complaint and completing an investigation into it is 180 days, but those alleging antisemitism have often remained pending “for months and years, which is not acceptable.” He added, however, that antisemitism investigations are complex, involving multiple incidents, witnesses, and sometimes faculty.

He added that the best approach going forward is one in which the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — which has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and well over 1,000 global entities, from countries to companies — is the sole definition used to determine the veracity of an accusation of antisemitism.

According to the definition, antisemitism “is 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 IHRA definition provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.

The Biden administration’s national strategy to counter antisemitism, unveiled in May as the foundation of the federal government’s efforts to fight antisemitism, embraces elements of both the IHRA definition and the competing “Nexus Document.” The latter was written by a group of academics who argue that applying double standards to Israel and opposing Israel’s continuation as the nation-state of the Jewish people may not necessarily be antisemitic, creating tighter standards around when anti-Israel speech and activity is antisemitic.

“While it’s great that these lawmakers are focused on OCR’s backlog, it’s really important that agency gets the cases done right and not just fast,” Marcus said. “That means, among other things, using the executive order on combating antisemitism properly, which is to say in every case in which it is applicable and without using Nexus or any other definition [of antisemitism]. We really need to see a much stronger effort to protect IHRA and to ensure that it is the only definition that will be used. At one point, many of us hoped that the Biden national strategy would provide what was needed, but that hasn’t really happened, and we now know that well after the release of the national strategy, problems persists within OCR.”

Marcus has devoted his career to raising awareness of antisemitism in higher education. He told The Algemeiner that he founded the Brandeis Center to “create an organization that had the capacity to conduct research and hold institutions accountable through law.”

In July, he testified before an Israeli parliamentary committee to discuss the problems that anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist bigotry poses to Jewish students, ranging from the expulsion of Jewish students from school clubs to outright bans on Zionists speakers. Other incidents have included graffiti of swastikas on or near Jewish institutions and the adoption of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Marcus has repeatedly called on the Biden administration to issue new promised Title VI guidance based on Trump’s executive order, which, he explained, would protect Jewish students and facilitate the resolution of outstanding OCR complaints. In Feb. 2022, the Biden administration postponed doing so until later that year, but it has not acted since.

According to Marcus, if the guidance is delayed indefinitely, “it will become incumbent on Congress to not only write letters but consider legislation.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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