Columbia University was accused of antisemitism four years ago by an undergraduate who complained of a “severely pervasive and hostile environment” on campus, but the US Department of Education didn’t open an investigation into his claims until this month.
Jonathan Karten first urged the Education Department in 2019 to investigate whether the school’s actions violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Investigators interviewed Karten in 2020 but took no formal action, according to his lawyer.
When campus complaints of antisemitism soared after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, Karten’s lawyers again urged the department to act. This month, Karten got some measure of vindication when the Education Department announced that it opened Title VI probes of possible discrimination based on antisemitism or Islamophobia at Columbia, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Cooper Union, Lafayette College and University of Tampa.
“What we’ve seen since October 7 might not have happened had the department investigated this three years ago,” said Karten’s attorney Gerard Filitti of the Lawfare Project, which seeks to defend the civil rights of Jewish people through litigation.
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Filitti prodded the Education Department again to act in an Oct. 31 letter, saying Karten’s complaint “mirrors and even foreshadows events currently occurring at Columbia.” The website for the department’s Office of Civil Rights indicates that it opened two probes in mid-November of discrimination involving shared ancestry at Columbia. The university confirmed in a Nov. 20 letter to Filitti that it’s investigating Karten’s complaint.
Since the Hamas-Israel war began, alumni and students have criticized leadership at college campuses including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia over incidents of antisemitism. Each of the schools has created antisemitism task forces.
A poll released Monday by Hillel International shows that more than half of Jewish US college students say they feel less safe on their campus since the attack by Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.
Columbia spokesman Ben Chang said the school will cooperate with the Education Department investigation. Columbia is “moving forcefully against antisemitic threats, images, and other violations as they are reported, and we will continue to provide additional resources to protect our campuses,” he said. “But we also need to address the root causes.”
The Education Department’s spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Under Title VI, the Education Department investigates complaints at schools that receive federal funding and could theoretically cut off that money. But a typical resolution may seek to enhance a school’s policies and training, as it did with the University of Vermont in April following complaints of antisemitism on campus.
Filitti said he would like Columbia to adopt policies to ensure that the kind of discrimination that Karten and others faced doesn’t occur again. If those policies are violated, Columbia should discipline students who engage in harassment and remove from campus student organizations that engage in systemic discrimination and targeting of minority Jewish students, he said.
“The remedy is a change in the system at Columbia to better protect Jewish students,” Filitti said.
Filitti said that Karten, who was an undergraduate when he first complained, has graduated and runs a consulting business in Israel.
--With assistance from Janet Lorin.