Occidental Faculty has settled with two nonprofit organizations centered on combating antisemitism over a federal Workplace for Civil Rights criticism that the campus was a hostile atmosphere for Jewish and Israeli college students within the weeks and months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
Below the settlement, reached with the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Middle for Human Rights Below Legislation, the faculty agreed to take sweeping steps to guard Jewish college students, together with, amongst different issues:
- Updating the establishment’s discrimination coverage to stipulate examples of discrimination on the premise of shared ancestry;
- Adopting the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism for evaluating incidents of harassment and discrimination;
- Implementing new required Title VI trainings for all college students, workers and college;
- Creating new time, place and method insurance policies for when and the place protests might happen;
- Launching two campus local weather surveys, one in all which can embody questions on college students’ experiences of antisemitism; and
- Appointing two new roles: an affiliate director of Jewish pupil life and a Muslim pupil life coordinator.
The unique criticism in opposition to Occidental, a personal faculty in Los Angeles, was filed in Might and alleged that the faculty had not adequately responded to antisemitic incidents on campus, together with Jewish and Israeli college students being known as slurs and informed to “return to the gasoline chambers.” A number of Jewish and Israeli college students with on-campus jobs additionally reported that antisemitic harassment and bias compelled them to stop their jobs.
“This settlement demonstrates Occidental Faculty’s dedication to counter all types of up to date antisemitism and underscores their recognition that successfully combatting antisemitism requires understanding the connection between Jewish id, Israel, and Zionism,” Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Brandeis Middle, mentioned in a press launch. “We’re gratified by the college’s engagement in significant discussions on the highest ranges of the administration, and we’re heartened that Occidental has dedicated to making a safer atmosphere for Jewish college students. When carried out, this settlement will assist be certain that Jewish college students are capable of study and thrive in an atmosphere free from anti-Semitic hate, discrimination, and harassment.”
In a press release on the faculty’s web site, Occidental president Tom Stritikus, who joined the faculty in July, wrote, “As I imagine this Decision demonstrates, antisemitism is antithetical to the Faculty’s values, and discrimination in opposition to Jewish and Israeli college students needs to be unequivocally rejected in our neighborhood.”
