NEW YORK – New York University (NYU) settled a lawsuit brought by three Jewish students alleging the university failed to enforce its anti-discrimination policies. The students claimed the school violated their civil rights when it unevenly enforced its policies when handling discrimination and harassment of Jewish students on campus.
The lawsuit claimed NYU allowed chants, such as “gas the Jews” and Hitler was right,” as well as ignored other bigoted acts. Much of the alleged antisemitism happened shortly after the Israel-Hamas hostilities broke out in October.
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The matter was settled July 8 for an undisclosed amount. It ends a lawsuit filed in November 2023 by Bella Ingber, Sabrina Maslavi and Saul Tawil, reports CNN,
The settlement creates a new Title VI coordinator position so that NYU “responds adequately and consistently to allegations of discrimination and harassment based on all protected traits,” reports CNN. The new position will also be responsible for creating an annual report on NYU’s responses to “allegations of discrimination or harassment” since 2018.
Other Universities Facing Similar Lawsuits Over Antisemitism
The NYU antisemitism settlement was announced the same day as Brown University reached a resolution agreement with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure compliance with Title VI with respect to alleged harassment of students based on national origin, including shared Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, and/or Muslim ancestry, reports Reuters.
Other institutions facing similar lawsuits include Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, MIT, UC Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Pro-Palestinian protester groups have also filed lawsuits. The University of Florida’s Students for Justice in Palestine is suing the state university system for Governor Ron DeSantis’ call to deactivate two of its chapters, claiming the deactivation violates the group’s First Amendment rights. Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, head of the state university system, accused the group of providing “material support” to Hamas.
