(Berkeley, CA, March 18, 2025) – StandWithUs Saidoff Legal and a Jewish undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley filed a federal Title VI civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), with notice to the Department of Justice.
The complaint alleges that masked pro-Hamas aggressors assaulted an identifiably Jewish student during a pro-Hamas protest on campus on October 16, 2023, and that a year later, the same student faced another antisemitic attack, this time at a protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine.
In both incidents, the student reported the assaults to the campus police, and both times the police refused to investigate or even confraont the perpetrators, even though officers were in the vicinity of both incidents and the victim immediately pointed out the perpetrators to them. As a result of this deliberate inaction, the assailants in both incidents remain unidentified, preventing the student from holding them accountable either criminally or civilly.
Yael Lerman, Director of StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, said, “The same Jewish student was assaulted twice on UC Berkeley’s campus in one year, and both times, the administration and campus police refused to act. UC Berkeley is not just ignoring antisemitic violence—it is enabling it. UC Berkeley campus police appear to be allowing antisemitic assaults, discrimination and harassment of Jewish students out of fear of upsetting, pro-Hamas activists.”
Additionally, the complaint points to Executive Order 14188, issued on January 25, 2025, which specifically identifies acts such as denial of access to campus areas, intimidation, and physical assault as examples of antisemitic discrimination requiring immediate intervention.
The full Title VI complaint is available HERE.
ABOUT STANDWITHUS
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 StandWithUs Saidoff Legal.
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. 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.
More at www.standwithus.com/legal
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