A moment of reckoning has arrived for New York University and antisemitism on university campuses. NYU could see its federal Title VI monitoring, intended to address precisely that bigotry, expire at the end of the month.

Whether to keep NYU under federal scrutiny or give it a clean bill of antisemitic health just weeks after an antisemitism scandal that revolves around messages sent school-wide that denounced the “omnipresent Zionist grip of the media” will be a decision for the Biden administration’s Department of Education to make in the coming days.

NYU Law, whose board and alumni rolls boast a panoply of legal superstars and pillars of New York’s Jewish community, in 2020 signed an agreement with the Department of Education Civil Rights Division, known as OCR, to quash a Title VI complaint that alleged a “hostile environment for Jewish students on campus.”

The complaint adumbrated “two years of extreme anti-Semitism on the NYU campus which has created an intolerable and unlawful hostile atmosphere for Jewish students.” In agreeing to the resolution, NYU denied any wrongdoing in connection with these accusations.  

Title VI is a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.” It is binding on “any program or activity that receives Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance.” As written, Title VI does not explicitly address religion. 

That lacuna was filled by a 2019 Executive Order spearheaded by the founder and director of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and onetime assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights, Kenneth L. Marcus. It mandated that “discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation.”

This allegation was precipitated by “multiple incidents of alleged harassment” spanning years. These incidents included a student tweeting that he wanted “all Zionists to die” as well as a physical attack on a pro-Israel group in Washington Square Park. 

In agreeing to a settlement resolution in order to “voluntarily resolve the Complainant’s allegation without further investigation,” NYU undertook to “take all necessary actions, including pursuant to its student discipline process,” to ensure that anti-Semitism did not persist on campus. These include reporting, outreach, and training commitments. 

It will now be up to Biden administration officials in the Department of Education to decide if NYU has shown itself to be on the road to recovery. This raises the possibility that the school will make the case for being beyond reproach even as many of its Jewish students feel under attack.

OCR did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

Mr. Marcus tells the Sun that it would be a “bad look to release NYU from monitoring when there are still significant issues with antisemitism.” He went on to say that the “Biden administration can’t close its eyes to what is happening at NYU.” The university is likely to be “anxious” to shed these monitoring requirements.

While monitoring agreements of this kind do not typically feature an official sunset date, they are reviewed by OCR staff after their last reporting requirements. For NYU, that is May 31 of this year. If the school has been cleared, it will receive a letter with notification of that change in status.   

Recent events have complicated NYU’s case for release. As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, a series of schoolwide emails from the Students for Justice in Palestine group sent in April lambasted “Zionist” control of the press, advocated for violence, and disdained nonviolence as a “racialized theory.” 

The statement was endorsed by 11 other student groups. Mr. Marcus tells the Sun that the emails from Students for Justice in Palestine are undoubtedly “massively antisemitic.”

No doubt aware of the resolution’s timeline, the dean of the law school, Trevor Morrison, wrote that he found those statements “very troubling” and expressed concern “about their potentially harmful effect on some Jewish members of our community.”

The Sun reached out to several members of NYU’s Board of Trustees, many of whom are leading lights in both the legal community and Jewish world. These include a founder of one of America’s most prestigious law firms, Marty Lipton, and the president of Garden Home and owner of the Minnesota Vikings, Mark Wilf. None responded to requests for comment.   

Instead, a spokesperson sent the Sun a joint statement by NYU and NYU Law saying that they “vehemently reject and condemn anti-Semitism; it has no place in our community.” The school also noted that “several complaints have been filed” in connection with these emails.   

These protestations notwithstanding, Mr. Marcus identifies the emails from Students for Justice in Palestine as part of a larger pattern of administrative malpractice whereby NYU “has not been effective in how it has addressed antisemitism.”

While noting a “continuing pattern” of antisemitic incidents at the Astor Place headquartered school, Mr. Marcus also reminds that the executive order that names those as Title VI violations “has not been rescinded,” and neither has OCR’s obligation to monitor NYU for violations. At least, not until the end of May.

With that framework in place, Mr. Marcus believes that if NYU “fails to address this harassment,” this surfacing of antisemitism is likely to be the “basis for future action,” prompted by student complaints. If the resolution is allowed to expire, those actions will have to start from scratch. 

For his part, Mr. Marcus believes that disciplining individual students in circumstances such as this “can backfire” and precipitate censorship concerns, even as he urges systemic change and insists that “doing nothing is not an option.”       

The events at NYU have transpired against a backdrop that appears to portend a deteriorating environment for American Jews, both on campus and otherwise. The Anti-Defamation League reported a 34 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in 2021, yielding the highest number on record.

The City University of New York’s law school faculty recently voted to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement and featured a commencement speaker who lambasted “Zionist harassment” and last year said “abolishing Israel is the key to peace.” 

Another study, published by the American Jewish Committee, found that nearly four in 10 respondents believed that “the anti-Israel climate, on campus or elsewhere, has forced me to hide my Jewish identity.”