OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
4:45 PM – Wednesday, November 15, 2023
New York University has been hit with a “groundbreaking” lawsuit for allegedly letting anti-Semitism escalate on its campus and “deliberately seeking” to “make the campus environment even more frightening for Jewish students.”
On Tuesday, three Jewish NYU students filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that claims the college had “failed to protect them from discrimination on campus,” since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7th.
“NYU is among the worst campuses for Jewish students, and NYU has long been aware of the festering Jewish hatred permeating the school,” the lawsuit said.
Jewish students Bella Ingber, Sabrina Maslavi, and Saul Tawil claimed that NYU committed “egregious civil rights violations” by allegedly letting other students yell anti-Semitic slogans like “gas the Jews” and “Hitler was right” without consequences.
Their lawsuit alleges that NYU has been handing “mobs of students carte blanche to harass and intimidate NYU’s Jewish population” through its “actions and inactions” since the start of the conflict.
Additionally, the lawsuit claimed that “the age-old virus of antisemitism is alive and well at New York University and has grown worse” after Hamas’ tragic October 7th invasion into Israel that brought rising tensions.
Ingber, Maslavi, and Tawil also alleged that NYU breached the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination that is centered around race, color, or national origin.
“In enabling this campus antisemitism—which spews the same anti-Jewish vitriol that the Nazis propagated eighty years ago—NYU has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” the lawsuit stated.
The students voiced how they attempted to share their concerns with the university, but administrators “brushed them off” and told them to call the Wellness Exchange, a hotline for students that are coping with “emotional challenges.”
“NYU has not ‘addressed and ameliorated’ campus antisemitism, as the university committed to do three years ago. In fact, shockingly, NYU has done the opposite, it has deliberately sought to burnish its anti-Semitic credentials and make the campus environment even more hostile and frightening for Jewish students,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also mentioned that NYU was aware of the “ongoing and disgraceful acts of anti-Jewish bigotry,” and still declined to act in violation of Jewish students’ rights.
“Even though every instance of anti-Semitic behavior alleged herein is prohibited by one or more of NYU’s policies, the university has done nothing to enforce these policies to remedy or prevent that behavior, and certainly nothing approaching the manner in which NYU has enforced them with respect to misconduct not involving antisemitism,” the lawsuit said. “NYU selectively enforces its own rules, deeming Jewish students unworthy of the protections it readily affords to non-Jewish students victimized by discrimination, harassment, and intimidation.”
“Nearly every day since the attack, plaintiffs and other Jewish students have been forced to run a campus gauntlet of verbal and physical harassment, threats, and intimidation. Moreover, Jewish students’ complaints are ignored, slow-walked, or met with gaslighting by NYU administrators,” the lawsuit added.
However, NYU challenged the Jewish students’ claims, saying that the lawsuit does not “accurately describe conditions on our campus,” and that the university is “looking forward to setting the record straight” in court.
“NYU has promptly reviewed and opened investigations into reported complaints of antisemitism and related misconduct,” NYU spokesperson John Beckman said. “NYU looks forward to setting the record straight, to challenging this lawsuit’s one-sided narrative, to making clear the many efforts NYU has made to combat antisemitism and provide a safe environment for Jewish students and non-Jewish students, and to prevailing in court.”
The three students claimed that NYU has not complied with its own policies regarding ending discrimination, and that the students were fully expecting to be allowed to embrace their culture and identity when they initially enrolled.
A judge has been asked in the lawsuit to require NYU to defend the students, including firing deans and other administrators who have been accused for the alleged toxic environment.
Additionally, the students demanded an amount of money that has not been disclosed to the press.
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