OCR complaint filed against Columbia University

On December 18, 2019, The Lawfare Project filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights against Columbia University on behalf of Jonathan Karten, a Jewish Israeli-American undergraduate student who has been a victim of anti-Semitic discrimination over the past year.

Sadly, Jonathan is not the only Jewish or Israeli student at Columbia who has been the victim of discrimination based on his national origin and religion. For several years, Jewish students have endured systematic discrimination from tenured professors and anti-Israel groups like Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) and Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).

In addition, Columbia students and faculty have engaged in "Israel Apartheid Week," a week-long series of events that targets Jews and Israelis and promotes the hateful, unlawful boycott of Jewish individuals and Israeli businesses. The administration has direct knowledge of this hostile environment, yet it has done nothing to remediate it. They have even previously invited virulently anti-Semitic speakers to campus.

Too often, Jewish and Israeli students are the target of bigotry and discrimination, with politics used as an excuse. Thanks to President Trump’s newly issued Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, Jewish students are now granted the same protections as other minority groups, and anti-Semitic harassment like Jonathan experienced is expressly prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We are requesting that the Office for Civil Rights open a formal investigation into the pervasive, ongoing discrimination that Columbia has failed to address.