NYU Slammed with Massive Antisemitism Lawsuit

NYU Slammed with Massive Antisemitism Lawsuit

It is no secret that New York University has been a hotbed of antisemitic activity for quite some time, as we have reported.

For example, just since the Hamas terrorist butchery on October 7, we have reported on several antisemitic incidents on campus:

• Law Firm Rescinds Job Offer to NYU Law Student After She Claims Support for Hamas
• VIDEO: NYU Students Tear Down Posters of Israelis Kidnapped by Hamas
• NYU Law Students Say Their Classmate Losing Job Offer Over Support for Hamas is ‘Violence’
• NYU Students Stage Pro-Hamas Walkout With Signs Advocating the Genocide of Jews

But even before that, antisemitism and other forms of anti-white racism and other despicable conduct were alive and well at NYU, as we reported:

• NYU Gets $40,000 From HHS to Study Why Children ‘Favor Whiteness and Maleness’
• NYU Course Using Taylor Swift Music to Teach Students About ‘Whiteness’ and ‘American Nationalism
• NYU Prof: Black and Latino Trump Supporters at Capitol are a Product of ‘Multiracial Whiteness’
• Will NYU discipline anti-Israel Dorm Stormers?
• ALERT – NYU Grad Student Union [anti-Israel] BDS Vote Mid-April
• At NYU it’s hard to tell American Studies from outright anti-Israel organizing

Other media sources reported the same. From The Algemeiner:

• 50 New York University Groups Pledge to Boycott Zionist Student Clubs, All Israeli Goods
• Anti-Zionist NYU Students Arrested at Israel Independence Day Party, Charged With Reckless Endangerment, Assault

And the Jerusalem Post recently reported that Antony Blinken’s cousin withdraws from NYU ‘because of antisemitism’.

In fact, antisemitism was so rampant at NYU that a Jewish student named Adela Cojab sued NYU in 2019 after numerous antisemitic events occurred on campus. NYU largely ignored her complaints about the events and even gave the Students for Justice in Palestine its President’s Service Award, the highest award NYU gives to student groups on campus.

President Trump even gave Adela the floor at the 2019 annual Israeli-American Council to tell her story:

Remarkably, as we reported:

Only a few days after Adela’s speech, the president signed a landmark executive order including Jewish students as a protected class under Title IV. Crucially, the EO also defined anti-Semitism according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) classification, which includes bigoted anti-Israel behaviors common to groups involved in campaigns to boycott or demonize Israel.

And the case was settled. Details of the settlement were reported as follows:

Under the settlement, NYU will revise its discrimination and harassment policies to include anti-Semitism, issue a public statement from NYU President Hamilton that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated, conduct town hall meetings on anti-Semitism, work with NYU student groups to combat anti-Semitism and conduct training with students, faculty and university leadership on how to recognize contemporary anti-Semitism. Beginning now NYU will use the IHRA definition to recognize and identify anti-Semitism.

The types of anti-Semitic behaviors cited in Cojab’s complaint, that will now not be tolerated, include harassment, assaults, battery and vandalism. Cojab’s complaint documented numerous incidents including many that occurred at a pro-Israel celebration at Washington Square Park where a microphone was grabbed out of a speaker’s hands and Jewish students were assaulted. Two students were arrested for committing these acts.

As we summarized:

Hopefully, Adela’s settlement will lead to university administrators’ increased awareness and concern about anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on college campuses; at the very least, it should serve as a signal to institutions of higher education that they can no longer condemn some bigotries while brushing others under the proverbial rug.

So, did NYU’s administrators show “increased awareness and concern about anti-Semitism”?

Apparently not.

Three Jewish NYU students have now sued NYU in federal court in Manhattan for allegedly gross antisemitism. From the Complaint’s “Preliminary Statement“:

The age-old virus of antisemitism is alive and well at New York University. This case arises from NYU’s egregious civil rights violations that have created a hostile educational environment in which plaintiffs and other Jewish NYU students have been subjected to pervasive acts of hatred, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation. For years, NYU—acutely aware of ongoing and disgraceful acts of anti-Jewish bigotry—has reacted with, at best, deliberate indifference, refusing to enforce its own anti-discrimination and conduct policies that it readily applies to protect other targets of bigotry, and instead fostering an environment in which students and faculty members are permitted to repeatedly abuse, malign, vilify, and threaten Jewish students with impunity. Regularly confronted with such genocidal chants as, “Hitler was right,” “gas the Jews,” “death to kikes,” and “from the river to the sea,” and other abuse, plaintiffs not only have been deprived of the ability and opportunity to fully and meaningfully participate in NYU’s educational and other programs, but they have suffered and have been put at severe risk of extreme emotional and physical injury.

[emphasis added]

Bloomberg reports: NYU Sued by Students Over ‘Egregious’ Antisemitism on Campus

Three Jewish students at New York University sued the school on Tuesday, claiming it failed to protect them from “egregious” antisemitism that has worsened since the Israel-Hamas war began.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, claims the university must take action under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin.

“Mobs of students, often accompanied and encouraged by professors, have been given carte blanche to harass and intimidate NYU’s Jewish population,” according to the complaint. “As a result of NYU’s actions and inactions, antisemitism at NYU now thrives like never before.”

An NYU spokesperson said the university looks forward to setting the record straight and prevailing in court.

“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,” spokesperson John Beckman said in an emailed statement.

The explosion of antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses has led to renewed interest in whether students can use Title VI to force universities to do more to protect them. President Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to use the law in the face of campus threats and violence….

Since Oct. 7, many students and faculty have “openly and enthusiastically” endorsed Hamas, the complaint says….

The lawsuit was filed on the same day that thousands of people gathered on Washington’s National Mall to express support for Israel in the one of the largest such demonstrations since the war began. Organizers said the event drew more than 200,000 people, but there was no official confirmation of that estimate.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Still, the Complaint is massive, spanning 83 pages and 281 paragraphs of precise allegations and claiming relief under six different causes of action, including Title VI, the federal statute prohibiting discrimination by entities receiving federal funding, New York State law, and common law breach of contract.

You can review the Complaint here.

Please read the entire Complaint, but I highlight one of the many shocking allegations in the Complaint:

NYU has not “addressed and ameliorated” campus antisemitism, as the university committed to do three years ago. In fact, shockingly, NYU has done the opposite—it has deliberately sought to burnish its antisemitic credentials and make the campus environment even more hostile and frightening for Jewish students. For example, on October 9, just two days after the horrific terrorist attack in Israel, NYU announced the appointment of Eve Tuck to establish a so-called “Center for Indigenous Studies” at NYU. Professor Tuck, who has a long history of anti-Israel statements, wasted no time praising the murder of Jews. Four days after the Hamas massacre, she called the “Palestinian resistance” “life and future affirming,” and two weeks later, signed a viciously antisemitic open letter defaming Israel. NYU did not censure or terminate Professor Tuck—as it has done for far less egregious conduct where antisemitism was not involved—but remained silent for a month, when it belatedly issued a statement on her behalf purporting to condemn Hamas’s terrorism—which, given her previous statements, could not have been more disingenuous.

[emphasis added]

Importantly, the three Plaintiffs are represented by New York City heavy hitter litigation law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres, whose tagline is: “Creative. Aggressive. Relentless,” and named partners Marc Kasowitz and Daniel Benson, among others, are representing the Plaintiffs. I highly recommend watching Kasowitz’s firm video available here.

Kasowitz was one of the law firms joining a recent letter sent to law school deans admonishing them about antisemitism. From Reuters: Major US law firms call on law schools to condemn ‘antisemitism, Islamophobia’

More than two dozen major U.S. law firms sent a letter on Wednesday to the deans of the nation’s top-ranked law schools expressing concern over a wave of antisemitism and intimidation on university campuses amid the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The 27 firms urged 14 of the top-ranked law schools in the U.S. to take a “unequivocal stance” against discrimination and harassment and said they “look forward” to learning from law schools how they are addressing the situation on their own campuses.

A solid 164 top law firms in the USA and growing daily, support the letter to law school deans. Stamp out anti semitism and do so by not supporting those people, institutions and governments who do. Quite simple, really. You wanna support mass homicide, rapes and organized… https://t.co/G6cvjPX56Z

— Laura Love (@Panopticonomy) November 7, 2023

When the letter was published, I posted the following to X:

Law firm statement to law schools on zero tolerance for antisemitism. Proud my old firm, Fried Frank, is a signatory. https://t.co/kCy5kLIs0u

— James Nault, CAPT (USN) (Ret.) (@JamesRNault) November 2, 2023

X users have, of course, weighed in:

NYU entering the FO stage of FAFO as it has been sued for a continued failure to address Antisemitism on campus. https://t.co/Ke1AGNjSZv

— Andrew Jablon (@avj73) November 15, 2023

I feel pretty confident in saying that this lawsuit will be the first of many filed against college and universities in the United States.
Their tepid responses to the explosion of #antisemitism on campus has left them extremely vulnerable. https://t.co/v6yvl83o5D

— Brad Pomerance (@bradpomerance) November 15, 2023

Three Jewish students slapped New York University with a lawsuit Tuesday, accusing the private college of fostering a hostile double standard in which Jewish students are subjected to an “egregious” antisemitic “hate-fest” on campus. @jruss_jruss https://t.co/2v8eaXEJeF

— Courthouse News (@CourthouseNews) November 15, 2023

"🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨 Jewish students take a stand! Find out why they are suing NYU over rampant antisemitism on campus. This shocking lawsuit exposes the university's failure to protect its students. Read the full story here: https://t.co/QvD6a1Yb7l #Antisemitism #NYU"

— Kamzou L (@kamzou08) November 14, 2023

Senior federal district court judge Paul A. Crotty has been assigned to the case. Judge Crotty was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2005.

I predict NYU is in for the lawsuit of its life.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.