On Wednesday, October 22, StandWithUs, along with the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) and with the support of the Deborah Project, filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in a lawsuit seeking to hold the University of Pennsylvania (“Penn”) accountable for failing to respond appropriately after October 7, 2023, to a campus climate rife with anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli animus.
The district court dismissed the Plaintiffs’ complaint, holding that it failed to allege Penn’s “deliberate indifference” to a hostile discriminatory climate, as is required to state a claim for a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”). The district court found that because Penn had taken some actions to address antisemitism, it satisfied its Title VI obligations and was not deliberately indifferent. Our brief notes that this is not an accurate application of the deliberate indifference standard to the facts in the complaint, which detail both inaction by the Penn administration and a failure to implement new measures following those minimal steps that proved wholly ineffective at remedying the antisemitic climate.
Unfortunately, the district court also mischaracterized the facts as involving nothing more than differing viewpoints, rather than recognizing that what happened on Penn’s campus (as on many other U.S. campuses recently) crossed the line from simple rhetoric into harassment that created a hostile environment for Penn’s Jewish and Israeli students.
The StandWithUs/NJAC brief, which is subject to court approval, first seeks to provide the appellate court with a proper understanding of Jewish ancestral identity, or Zionism. It explains why and how the land of Israel is integral to Jewish ancestry and some of the ways that manifests for many Jews today. Only with this understanding of Zionism (as identity rather than politics) can one properly understand that the situation at Penn was not merely a matter of activists expressing objectionable or offensive viewpoints but a direct targeting of Jewish ancestral identity that created a campus atmosphere wholly inhospitable to Jews and Israelis in violation of federal law.
The brief then notes the explosion of antisemitism that occurred on U.S. campuses in recent years, much of which has been fueled by a concerted campaign to demonize and erase the 3,000+ year historical connection between Jews and their ancestral homeland of Israel. It discusses the clear guidance to administrators that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued, on multiple occasions in the midst of this crisis, to instruct them about how to comply with their Title VI obligations in the face of this form of antisemitism.
Finally, the brief points to numerous allegations in Plaintiffs’ complaint that amply make the case of a hostile anti-Jewish environment at Penn and the administration’s failure to take reasonable and effective steps to address the problem that was pervading its campus.
“We are hopeful that our brief helps the appellate court to recognize that the district court’s dismissal of the complaint was an error in need of immediate correction to best ensure that Penn’s Jewish and Israeli students can enjoy equal educational opportunities free from harassment and hostility based on their core identities,” said Carly Gammill, StandWithUs Saidoff Law, Director of Legal Policy.
