Dear Attorney General,
We write to you from the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a division of StandWithUs, an international, nonprofit organization with the mission of educating about Israel and combating antisemitism. Since Hamas’s October 7th invasion—during which Hamas-led terrorists poured into Israel, slaughtered, raped, and tortured over 1,200 people, injured over 5,000 more, and abducted 240—antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have skyrocketed.
This is especially the case on college campuses, where we have received hundreds of requests for legal help in incidents involving physical assaults, criminal threats, false imprisonment, discrimination, and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students. University administrators often ignore or excuse such bigotry under various pretexts, including a distorted interpretation of the First Amendment and misidentifying such hate as “political speech.”
As Attorney General, you are the primary legal voice of your state. As such, we call upon you to exercise your authority and influence to combat this alarming trend in your state’s public institutions of higher learning—including public universities and public secondary schools.
As Virginia’s Attorney General has demonstrated in directives and actions, w e urge you to instruct your state’s universities to take antisemitism seriously and to enforce applicable rules to prevent its normalization. Specifically, we request that your office take the following proactive steps to ensure Jewish and Israeli students may participate safely and fully in educational spaces:
We further note that several state governors, including New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul and Virginia’s Governor Glenn Youngkin, have already established initiatives to combat antisemitism in their states’ school systems. Specifically:
With the start of a new semester, it is our hope that you will take this opportunity to demonstrate leadership and moral clarity, and to convey that indifference to antisemitic bigotry has no place in your state.
If we can be of assistance in any of these matters, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at legal@standwithus.com . Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Yael Lerman
Director
StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department
Gadi Dotz
Assistant Director
StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department
StandWithUs is an international, non-partisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism. StandWithUs empowers and energizes students and communities with leadership training and educational programs on hundreds of college campuses, high schools, and middle schools. StandWithUs informs through social media, print and digital materials, films, weekly newsletters, and missions to Israel. StandWithUs takes legal action through the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters and offices throughout the U.S., Israel, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Australia. More at www.standwithus.com.
