Novi Zhukovsky
The New York Sun, Jan. 21, 2025
“The settlement puts an end to two lawsuits filed against the school over its mishandling of antisemitism after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.”
‘We now have a Harvard standard that other colleges will strive to meet,’ a leading authority on antisemitism and civil rights in higher education tells the Sun.
Harvard University, as part of a settlement agreement to resolve two Title VI civil rights lawsuits levied against the school, will implement its most significant measures yet to protect Israeli and Jewish students from antisemitic discrimination on campus.
“This is a watershed moment,” the leading authority on antisemitism and civil rights in higher education, Kenneth Marcus, tells the Sun. “This agreement is the strongest we’ve seen so far, and it marks a major victory for Jewish students.”
In one of the most notable stipulations, the university will amend its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism, which embraces the connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. The standard explicitly includes, in its definition of an antisemitic act, denying Jews the right to self-determination by claiming, for example, that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor. ….SOURCE