The U.S. Department of Education announced on Tuesday that it resolved a complaint alleging “numerous incidents of antisemitism” at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, “including the recurring appearance of swastikas throughout campus, mezuzahs ripped off students’ doors and a brick being thrown through the window of a Jewish fraternity.”
The department investigates complaints under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for alleged discrimination based on “shared ancestry,” which includes antisemitism. It opened an investigation against the Illinois public school in March 2020.
Between 2015 and December 2023, the university received reports of 139 incidents that reflected alleged bias based on shared ancestry, which the department reviewed. It found that the university did not meet its Title VI obligations “to assess whether a hostile environment was created for students, faculty or staff related to any of the complaints the university received.”
Of those 139, 135 (97%) alleged Jew-hatred and four (nearly 3%) related to accused anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab bias. (JNS sought comment from the university.)
“The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has now agreed to take the steps necessary to ensure its education community can learn, teach and work without an unredressed antisemitic hostile environment, or any other hostility related to stereotypes about shared ancestry,” stated Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the department.
The public school agreed to seven measures, including reviewing policies on bias (and recognizing hostile environments can arise off-campus or on social media), potentially revising its “protest and demonstration policy to ensure university law enforcement responses related to protests and demonstrations are applied equitably and in a manner compliant with Title VI” and providing the Education Department with information about complaints based on shared ancestry in the coming academic year.
Published on Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:53:20 -0400. Original article link
