Occidental School settles OCR grievance

Occidental School has settled with two nonprofit organizations targeted on combating antisemitism over a federal Workplace for Civil Rights grievance that the campus was a hostile atmosphere for Jewish and Israeli college students within the weeks and months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.

Underneath the settlement, reached with the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Middle for Human Rights Underneath Legislation, the faculty agreed to take sweeping steps to guard Jewish college students, together with, amongst different issues:

• Updating the establishment’s discrimination coverage to stipulate examples of discrimination on the premise of shared ancestry;
• Adopting the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism for evaluating incidents of harassment and discrimination;
• Implementing new required Title VI trainings for all college students, employees and college;
• Creating new time, place and method insurance policies for when and the place protests might happen;
• Launching two campus local weather surveys, considered one of which is able to embrace questions on college students’ experiences of antisemitism; and
• Appointing two new roles: an affiliate director of Jewish scholar life and a Muslim scholar life coordinator.

The unique grievance in opposition to Occidental, a non-public school in Los Angeles, was filed in Could and alleged that the faculty had not adequately responded to antisemitic incidents on campus, together with Jewish and Israeli college students being referred to as slurs and advised to “return to the gasoline chambers.” A number of Jewish and Israeli college students with on-campus jobs additionally reported that antisemitic harassment and bias compelled them to give up their jobs.

“This settlement demonstrates Occidental School’s dedication to counter all types of up to date antisemitism and underscores their recognition that successfully combatting antisemitism requires understanding the connection between Jewish identification, Israel, and Zionism,” Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Brandeis Middle, mentioned in a press launch. “We’re gratified by the varsity’s engagement in significant discussions on the highest ranges of the administration, and we’re heartened that Occidental has dedicated to making a safer atmosphere for Jewish college students. When applied, this settlement will assist be sure that Jewish college students are in a position to study and thrive in an atmosphere free from anti-Semitic hate, discrimination, and harassment.”

In an announcement on the faculty’s web site, Occidental president Tom Stritikus, who joined the faculty in July, wrote, “As I consider this Decision demonstrates, antisemitism is antithetical to the School’s values, and discrimination in opposition to Jewish and Israeli college students needs to be unequivocally rejected in our neighborhood.”