Anti-Israel students protest at Columbia University in New York City. Photo: Reuters/Jeenah Moon

Leading civil rights nonprofit StandWithUs has written to the US Department of Education (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), calling on the agency to issue guidance counseling universities on how to address antisemitic harassment and intimidation perpetrated by members of recognized student clubs and other organizations they fund.

“We write to alert you to a deeply troubling manifestation of antisemitism on college campuses that we believe necessitates your continued attention and leadership: that of conduct by university-funded seats of power, such as campus legislative bodies, multicultural centers, and official student clubs, which use their authority to reject, ostracize, de-fund, discriminate against, and/or harass Jewish and Israeli students because of their protected identities,” StandWithUs wrote to Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon.

“When such incidents occur, most university administrations seem at a loss as to why this university-funded student conduct is antisemitic and how to respond. They often opt for the course of least resistance and take no action, leaving Jewish students marginalized and discriminated against,” the organization continued.

StandWithUs went on to cite numerous examples of recognized student clubs discriminating against Jewish students, including Pomona College’s student government’s passing in 2021 a resolution to defund Jewish groups that support Israel, William College’s student government’s rejecting in 2019 a “Williams Initiative for Israel” club, and Duke University’s student government’s withholding recognition from a Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter.

To address future similar incidents, group recommended that Lhamon issue guidance which cautions universities to depoliticize student governments, share more decision making power with them, thereby preventing abuses, and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used by governments and private entities across the world.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters lead the way in promoting a campus environment hostile to Jewish and pro-Israel voices, even suggesting during their demonstrations that Israeli civilians deserved to be murdered for being “settlers.” Additionally, as scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide and invoked global outrage, SJP chapters at schools such as Brown University, the University of Maryland, Tufts University, and the University of California-Los Angeles described the attacks as a form of “resistance” and demanded that others accept “our right to liberate our homeland by any means necessary.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.