Good free speech guide

Nov 27, 2023, 9:14 AM

But MIT declined to take action against demonstrators who prevented Jewish students from attending class, despite warnings that they were violating university policies, precisely because officials knew that many of the harassers were foreign students subject to deportation. The school’s refusal to do so effectively gives foreigners—but not Americans—the right to harass, intimidate, and vandalize. Such appeasement of antisemitism opens the university to claims under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which brings us to the next question.

What if an institution knows that Jewish students are being threatened and does nothing, or creates impotent task forces without addressing immediate threats? Or what if officials take ideological sides (like an administrator at the University of Chicago who marched with SJP protesters) or egg on a mob shouting down a speaker (like Stanford Law’s DEI dean at Judge Kyle Duncan’s event in March)?

This is where Title VI of the Civil Rights Act comes in.

Title VI prohibits any entity that receives federal money (including student loans) from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin, which the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) understands to include “actual or perceived” ancestry, ethnicity, and religion.

https://www.thefp.com/p/where-free-speech-ends-and-lawbreaking-begins

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So the legal landscape is ripe for both administrative complaints and lawsuits alleging that all these hand-wringing academic grandees have failed to address the very real threats to the physical safety of Jewish students. At Cooper Union, a staffer locked Jewish students in the library for their own protection in the face of demonstrators shouting, “Free, free Palestine.” I’m not sure offering Jews a chance to hide in the attic satisfies Title VI.

Apparently the Department of Education feels similarly: it recently announced Title VI investigations into Cooper Union and six other schools, including Columbia, Cornell, and Penn.

Jewish students are also planning lawsuits: three NYU juniors have already sued their university, asserting a variety of federal and state claims, including Title VI and breach of contract (not enforcing NYU’s own discrimination and student-conduct policies).

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