Occidental College settles OCR complaint

Occidental College has actually settled with two not-for-profit companies focused on combating antisemitism over a government Workplace for Civil liberty issue that the university was a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli pupils in the months and weeks complying with Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, strike on Israel.

Under the settlement, reached with the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Regulation, the university accepted take sweeping steps to shield Jewish students, including, to name a few things:

The original complaint versus Occidental, an exclusive college in Los Angeles, was filed in Might and declared that the college had not properly replied to antisemitic events on school, including Israeli and jewish students being called slurs and told to “go back to the gas chambers.” Multiple Jewish and Israeli pupils with on-campus work likewise reported that antisemitic harassment and bias compelled them to stop their work.

In a declaration on the university’s site, Occidental president Tom Stritikus, that joined the college in July, wrote, “As I believe this Resolution demonstrates, antisemitism is antithetical to the University’s values, and discrimination against Jewish and Israeli pupils ought to be unequivocally declined in our area.”

“This agreement shows Occidental University’s dedication to respond to all forms of contemporary antisemitism and highlights their recognition that properly dealing with antisemitism requires recognizing the partnership in between Jewish identification, Israel, and Zionism,” Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Brandeis Facility, stated in a press release. “We are pleased by the college’s involvement in purposeful discussions at the highest levels of the administration, and we are heartened that Occidental has actually devoted to developing a safer atmosphere for Jewish trainees. When implemented, this agreement will aid guarantee that Jewish trainees are able to discover and thrive in an atmosphere free from anti-Semitic hate, discrimination, and harassment.”