Department of Education Resolves Title VI Complaints Filed by StandWithUs
(Los Angeles, February, 2025) — In the final days of President Biden’s administration, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) concluded its investigations into four federal Title VI complaints filed by StandWithUs and its partner organization, the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice (SCLJ).
The complaints alleged administrative failure to remedy hostile environments for Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students at Lehigh University, UCLA, UC Davis, and George Washington University. As a result of these investigations, StandWithUs and SCLJ secured a series of sweeping reforms geared to address past and (potential) future antisemitism at these institutions, achieved justice for individual students, and shined a spotlight on how antisemitism is addressed on these campuses.
At Lehigh University, a private university in Pennsylvania, OCR confirmed that many of the antisemitic incidents and deficient administrative responses first highlighted by StandWithUs, and later included in SCLJ’s complaint, indeed raised Title VI compliance concerns. This included the university’s response to an incident in which a student’s mezuzah was torn down from his doorframe. Lehigh must now take significant remedial measures, including (1) revisiting every complaint of antisemitic discrimination and harassment from the past two years and determine whether these created a hostile environment for Jews on campus; (2) reporting to OCR about all such complaints over the next two years; (3) implementing training for students and faculty on addressing incidents of antisemitic harassment; and (4) updating its policies and clarifying its reporting procedures to ensure that anti-Jewish bigotry is better identified and addressed.
Similarly, OCR expressed concern about UC Davis’ handling of several incidents highlighted in SCLJ’s Title VI complaint, including the university’s failure to evaluate whether speech, even if constitutionally protected from punishment, nonetheless created a hostile environment for Jewish students. Accordingly, per an omnibus agreement resolving Title VI complaints against several University of California campuses, UC Davis must now conduct annual training for those investigating antisemitism complaints. And it must audit every complaint of antisemitic discrimination from the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years so that the details of how it handled those complaints, including any steps it took to prevent the recurrence of a hostile environment created by the incident, can be reported to OCR.
At UCLA, OCR concluded a nearly five-year investigation into the university’s response to an incident in which a professor brought in a guest lecturer offered a diatribe against Zionists as alleged “white supremacists” during an anthropology class. OCR’s investigation revealed that just four days after StandWithUs sent a letter to a UCLA administrator regarding the incident and detailing its concerns about a hostile environment for Jews on campus, that same administrator issued a public report online with details about the incident, a link to information on how to file discrimination complaints, and a link to a statement announcing that the university was “currently looking into the concerns raised regarding the lecture.” OCR revealed that though the administration ultimately did not find a violation of the UCLA’s anti-harassment policy, it still took steps to address StandWithUs’ concerns. This included conducting a counseling session with the professor and providing feedback to the professor to prevent future complaints. It is unlikely that such swift remedial action would have occurred if not for the student who courageously challenged the lecturer’s biased and inaccurate presentation about Zionism or the assistance to help her hold UCLA accountable.
Finally, as a result of StandWithUs’ Title VI complaint, OCR found several deficiencies in the way George Washington University (GWU), a private university in Washington, D.C., handled complaints of antisemitic discrimination. Like some of the other universities, GWU must now review and revise its policies concerning antisemitic harassment, implement training for students and employees, and report back to OCR regarding antisemitism-related complaints. Additionally, GWU must address specific incidents highlighted by StandWithUs, including by evaluating whether a hostile environment was created by a former GWU professor’s antisemitic social media posts and, if so, remediating any effects of that hostile environment on individual students. The university must also fully expunge the disciplinary records of students who were wrongly disciplined in retaliation for speaking up against antisemitism in their classroom. Importantly, OCR expressed serious concerns with the procedure utilized by the university to determine whether to initiate disciplinary proceedings in the first place, as it left students "vulnerable to prejudice, hearsay, and stereotype – as well as to pretext – as bases for discipline." To safeguard student rights and prevent such improper treatment from recurring, GWU must now train its academic staff and administrators on unlawful retaliation against students who assert their Title VI rights in the future.
“These resolutions achieve a small measure of justice for students subjected to clear attacks against their Jewish identity at these four universities,” said Carly Gammill, Director of Legal Policy in the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department. “The remedial measures imposed by OCR will hopefully ensure that these universities treat complaints of antisemitism on their campuses appropriately for the betterment of not only Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students but all members of their campus communities.”
ABOUT STANDWITHUS
StandWithUs (SWU) is a 23-year-old international non-partisan education organization that inspires people of all ages about Israel, challenges misinformation and fights against antisemitism.
StandWithUs empowers people around the world to educate others through social media, print and digital materials in different languages, through educational programs and conferences, weekly newsletters, data and analytics, and missions to Israel.
It takes legal action through the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department. It empowers hundreds of student leaders annually through its college Fellowship and high school Internship. SWU provides schools and educators with vital tools through its IsraelLINK middle school program, Holocaust Education Center, and K-12 Fairness Center.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, StandWithUs has chapters throughout the U.S., Israel, Canada, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Australia and South Africa.
For the last thirteen years, StandWithUs has consistently received the highest possible ratings from Charity Navigator and GuideStar, two charity watchdog groups that assess over a million charities in the United States. This puts StandWithUs in the top 3% of charities ranked for their transparency and accountability.
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