Denise Katz-Prober, director of litigation for The Louis B. Brandeis Center (LDB), says faculty and students at Brooklyn College are guilty of narratives accusing Jewish students of systemically oppressing people of color. A formal complaint regarding anti-Semitism was filed on behalf of students in the Mental Health Counseling master's program, and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights has launched a formal investigation in response.
"It's a narrative that has permeated the program," Katz-Prober asserts. "The university did not intervene to do anything to protect these students, and this hostile climate has had really devastating effects for many of these Jewish students."
According to the litigation director, Jews who objected to or complained about the hostility in the program were further harassed and intimidated by faculty and administrators.
"At a time when every group is encouraged to celebrate their identity, their full identity, Jews are feeling pressured both by the anti-Semitic circumstances and experience within anti-Semitism [to] shed their Jewish identity," Katz-Prober submits.
The Brandeis Center has filed a similar complaint at Stanford University.
