The Brandeis Center has sued the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights following their dismissal of antisemitism related complaints.
Credit: Ethan YoungThe Brandeis Center, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing the rights of Jewish people, has sued the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for dismissing a complaint filed in November alleging that Penn fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students and failed to address repeated incidents of antisemitism.
The 32-page lawsuit, filed on July 9 in conjunction with Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, accused the OCR of not following its own procedural guidelines by dismissing the November complaint and citing the existence of a parallel lawsuit. The separate lawsuit — Yakoby v. University of Pennsylvania — was filed in December 2023 by 2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby and rising College sophomore Jordan Davis, who alleged instances of antisemitism on campus and an inadequate response from University administration.
OCR dismissed the Brandeis Center’s complaint under Section 110(h) of its Case Processing Manual, which allows for dismissal if a parallel class action lawsuit exists. The Brandeis Center argued that this dismissal was a violation of OCR’s own rules, as the Yakoby lawsuit was not a class action.
“OCR claimed it was shutting down its investigation, not based on a lack of merit as to the allegations against Penn’s administration, but supposedly because two Penn students had filed a lawsuit against the [U]niversity echoing many of the same allegations that the administration was allowing pervasive anti-Semitism to mushroom, creating a toxic and dangerous environment for Jewish students,” the lawsuit stated.
Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus wrote in a press release that OCR’s dismissal of the complaint showed “a blatant disregard” for Jewish students on Penn’s campus.
“Jewish students at UPenn and many other college campuses across the country increasingly continue to face an egregious amount of anti-Semitism, particularly after the Oct. 7 massacre,” Marcus wrote. “OCR’s decisions have crippled these students’ ability to seek remedy from these hostilities and allows certain colleges and universities to continue ignoring or even fostering antisemitism on their campus.”
The Daily Pennsylvanian previously reported that the Brandeis Center filed a detailed complaint with the OCR in November 2023 highlighting numerous instances of antisemitism at Penn. The complaint alleged that Penn violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and referenced several specific incidents — including the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, a vandalism incident at Penn Hillel, and the theft of an Israeli flag — that Penn had failed to take appropriate action to address, thus creating a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus.
A week after the complaint was initially filed, the OCR notified the Brandeis Center that it had opened an investigation to determine whether Penn had failed to respond adequately to alleged harassment of students and staff on the basis of national origin, as required by Title VI.
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