Anti-Semitism at NYU

Hat tip The Campus Fix

On November 14, three Jewish students filed a lawsuit against New York University charging that the university has acted with indifference to spreading campus anti-Semitism and failed to enforce its own anti-discrimination and conduct policies to protect students when it comes to Jews. (One student has apparently withdrawn his suit. The other two are pending.) Not surprisingly, the NYU chapter for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) features prominently. 

Of particular concern in this case is the allegation in the complaint that the below chants were reported at a pro-Palestinian rally 

"Gas the Jews"

"Hitler was right"

"Kill the kikes"

Here is how the NYU campus newspaper, the Washington Square News, reported the story on November 15. It featured a denial by a university spokesman.

“The assertions in this suit do not accurately describe conditions on our campus or the many steps NYU has been taking to fight antisemitism and keep the campus safe,” university spokesperson John Beckman told the New York Daily News. “NYU looks forward to setting the record straight, to challenging this lawsuit’s one-sided narrative, to making clear the many efforts NYU has made to combat antisemitism and provide a safe environment for Jewish students and non-Jewish students, and to prevailing in court.”

Here is a statement by one of the above three Jewish students, Bella Ingber, when she appeared on Capitol Hill to tell her story to a House Committee on Education (hat tip Aish.com).

On December 9, 4 days after the shameful testimony of the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania before Congress, New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote this letter to all NY State university and college heads. It appeared in the Washington Square News on December 11.

The question begs: What action has been taken by NYU to identify and take action against those who reportedly uttered the above chants?

Moreover, can you imagine the reaction had those chants been uttered against certain other groups?

"Gas the blacks" or "Gas the n-word (s)"

"Death to Mexicans/blacks/fags"

"The KKK was right"

I think it is clear that heaven and earth would have been moved to identify those students, and they would be promptly expelled-rightfully so. Any faculty member or employee guilty of that kind of language would be fired-rightfully so. Yet, time and time again, it seems those protections do not apply when the victims are Jews-or for that matter whites, and perhaps, Asians as well. To be accurate, disciplinary measures against students are covered by privacy protections. Thus, the university cannot divulge any such information publicly.

As alluded to in the above-linked November 15 article in Washington Square News, this is hardly the first time charges of campus anti-Semitism have been leveled at NYU in recent years.

In 2014, Jewish students living in university dorms found "eviction notices" posted on their doors by Students for Justice in Palestine.

That same year, the American Studies Program held a conference at NYU, which was one of those standard academic get-togethers, this one featuring a who's who of academic warriors against the Jewish state.

In May 2018, 63 organizations wrote a letter to NYU protesting efforts to boycott NYU's pro-Israel clubs on campus.

In 2019, SJP, in spite of its track record of brown shirt tactics of bullying and disruption, received a President's Service Award from NYU, one of the university's highest awards. That upset many of NYU's Jewish students who were well aware of SJP's tactics.

In November 2019, the Washington Square News reported that the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, had launched an investigation into accusations of campus Semitism by a Jewish student at NYU. The suit was settled in 2020.

"Under the terms of the resolution agreement between NYU and the feds — in which the school admitted no fault, the university agreed to revise their non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy to create a more expansive definition for anti-Semitism.

“The University will take appropriate action to address and ameliorate discrimination and harassment based on shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics, including anti-Semitism that involves student clubs,” the agreement reads.

The school also promised to curb acts of anti-Semitism going forward."

-NY Post

In addition, here is what the database of the Amcha Initiative, an organization dedicated to fighting campus anti-Semitism, has in its files on NYU.

I think it is obvious that problems exist at NYU-as they do on countless campuses across the nation. As long as the problems persist, these universities deserve all the negative publicity they get. That certainly includes NYU.