In recent weeks, Jewish students at prestigious US universities have launched a series of lawsuits against the institutions where they study, due to the failure to protect them from anti-Semitic attacks. This is how Columbia University in New York was sued for the second time by Jewish students who study there. Similar lawsuits have also been filed against the universities of Harvard, New York, Pennsylvania, California, and Berkeley.
The Jewish students explain in the lawsuit that the “endemic” school allowed anti-Semitism to flourish on campus for decades, until the Hamas attack on Israel unleashed, in their words, “another intolerable wave” of anti-Israel abuse. They define the campus, where many Israelis have also studied over the years, as “one of the worst centers of academic anti-Semitism” in the US. According to them, since the massacre by Hamas, Jewish students fear for their safety.
The students claim that Columbia violated federal civil rights law. According to them, “(their) exclusion and violent anti-Jewish rhetoric” have increased since the students returned from winter break. On February 13, for example, the demonstrators chanted: “There is no safe place, death to the Zionist state,” and other threatening sentences.
“Even with prior knowledge of these rallies, which violate many provisions of the university’s policy, and are organized by suspended student groups, Columbia refuses to stop them and reduce the hostile environment spreading to Jewish and Israeli students,” claims the lawsuit filed in New York federal court.
