January 2025
President Linda Mills, NYU President
Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights,
Dear President Mills & OCR,
This letter constitutes the reporting of a December 12, 2024 violation of Title VI based upon both belief and knowledge and includes the communication between an NYU professor and NYU students that constitutes prima facie evidence of the violation. As such, this letter constitutes a formal reporting of yet another example of NYU’s failure to meet their federally mandated responsibility towards upholding Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In addition, this December 12 likely also represents the failure of NYU to abide by the September 2020 Title VI Resolution Agreement between NYU and OCR.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs that receive federal funds. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Title VI applies to discrimination on the basis of Jewish ethnicity or ancestry in guidance issued in 2004 (see Kenneth L. Marcus, Dear Colleague Letter (Sep. 13, 2004), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/religious-rights2004.html). In 2017, OCR reminded us that “Title VI protects all students, including Jewish students, from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin (including language and actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics). Schools must take immediate and appropriate action to respond to complaints of discrimination, including harassment or bullying based on race, color, or national origin.”(See OCR, Combating Discrimination Against Jewish Students, U.S Dept. of Educ. (2017), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/jewish-factsheet-201701.pdf.) Earlier, OCR clarified that unlawful harassment need not include intent to harm, be directed at a specific target, or involve repeated incidents (see Russlynn Ali, Dear Colleague Letter (Oct. 26, 2010), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201010.html).
In September 2020, the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) entered into a Resolution Agreement with New York University (“NYU”) to resolve allegations that it had discriminated against Jewish students by failing to address anti-Semitic conduct that had created a hostile environment for them on campus. Pursuant to the Resolution Agreement, NYU committed to take steps during the academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 that included (1) modifying the university’s anti-discrimination policy to address the type of harassment and discrimination experienced by Jewish students at NYU and (2) educating the NYU community about those modifications. As described further in this letter, as evidenced by this complaint, NYU has failed to fully comply with these obligations. I am thus requesting that OCR open a new investigation based on the facts submitted herewith.
NYU has continued to see anti-Semitic incidents on its campus as recently as this month. It is essential, therefore, that OCR both investigate and hold NYU accountable for failing to meet its obligations in the Resolution Agreement and for its continued, deliberate and indifferent and by now, its thoroughly documented recent record of NYU’s flouting of its mandate to comply with both the Resolution Agreement and Title VI. Permitting NYU to blatantly negate its responsibilities towards Title VI - after numerous well documented violations would signal to Jewish students that the warnings and opportunities to correct the previous failures - that the Department of Education and the Office of Civil Rights are not serious about protecting Jewish students from harassment and discrimination that targets them on the basis of the Jews’ shared ancestry and ethnicity.
Historically and legally, Judaism is understood to be both a faith and an ethnicity. Jews share not only religious traditions, but also a deep historical sense of Jewish peoplehood. The Jewish people’s history, theology, and culture are deeply intertwined with the Land of Israel. For many NYU students (inclusive of Jewish students and Israeli students), expressing support for the Jewish homeland is a sincere and deeply felt expression of the Jewish people’s shared ancestral, religious, and ethnic identification with the Land of Israel.
As a result, for many of NYU’s Jewish students and Israeli students, Zionism is as integral to their identity as observing the Jewish Sabbath or maintaining a kosher diet is for others. Of course, not all Jews observe the Sabbath or keep kosher, but those who do clearly are expressing important components of their Jewish identity. Similarly, not all Jews are Zionists. But for many Jews, including NYU’s cohort of Jewish students and Israeli students, identifying with and expressing support for the Jewish homeland is also a sincere and deeply felt expression of their Jewish ethnic identity. Harassing, marginalizing, demonizing, and excluding these Jewish students on the basis of the Zionist component of their Jewish identity is just as unlawful and discriminatory as attacking a Jewish student for observing the Sabbath or keeping kosher.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act protects Jews against harassment and discrimination on the basis of their shared ethnic and ancestral identity. Indeed, guidance issued by OCR and the Department of Justice in 2004, 2010, and 2017 clarified that Title VI covers discrimination against Jews on the basis of their “actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”8 According to Executive Order 13899, which has been incorporated into OCR’s current policy guidance, Title VI must be enforced “against prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of discrimination prohibited by Title VI.”
Continued anti-Semitism at NYU That Now Requires Additional OCR Investigation and Oversight
NYU’s anti-Semitism problem drew public attention again this month. As widely reported, NYU’s Professor Linda Luu sent a formal communication to her students in which she reported to them that she(Professor Luu) would be officially cancelling her class and using that newly freed up time period so that she could attend an Anti-Israel & Pro-Hamas picket line / demonstration (itself a violation of NYU policy and a violation of Title VI as well as the Resolution Agreement) that would be popping up that day in NYU’s Bobst Library. The goal of this demonstration was to disrupt campus activity and stop students from studying. Professor Linda Luu went one step further in her official communication with her class students; she chose to explicate her personal anti-Zionist, and anti-Semitic views as part of an official NYU course communication thread between that course’s professor and its students. Additionally, in this same communication, Professor Luu took the opportunity to “invite” the course’s students to join her at picket line in her efforts to disrupt regular library activity. In short, as representative and an employee of NYU, and as part of her official duties, Professor Luu asked NYU students to join her in an action that was in and of itself anti-Semitic, Anti-Zionist. Professor Luu’s communications and actions ( done as part of her official duties) are clearly anti-Semitic, and Anti-Zionist as defined by the IHRA Definition which was incorporated into U.S. law in Executive Order 13899, which directs agencies to use the IHRA definition and its examples in evaluating allegations of anti-Semitism in federally funded programs. They are thus clearly in violation of Title VI.
Facts:
· NYU hired Ms. Linda Luu (a Ph.D. candidate) to teach Section001 of Visual Culture/Science and Technology MCC-UE 1411 for Spring 2024.
· On the last scheduled class day (Thursday December 12, 2024) Professor Luu sent an official communication to her students.
· The official communication stated that she would be “cancelling class…with the recognition that carrying on business as usual while a genocide has been unfolding is a maddening business and a choice to turn away from mass atrocities that are setting the bar for what violence we will all accept . There are no universities in Gaza. Students are demanding no work as usual during a genocide. I invite anyone from class to the picket line where Ill be happy! Happy to talk class, projects, students’ demands, whatever!”
· NYU permitted the aforementioned antizionist and antisemitic protest disturbance to be held in Bobst Library on Thursday December 12, 2024 in flagrant violation of its own policies on student conduct, its own policy on discrimination, and in violation of Title VI and in violation of the 2020 Resolution Agreement between NYU and OCR.
· The aforementioned protest/disturbance turned the Bobst library into an unsafe and threatening space for NYU’s Jewish Students and Israeli Students. This was in flagrant violation of its own policies on student conduct, its own policy on discrimination, and in violation of Title VI and in violation of the 2020 Resolution Agreement between NYU and OCR.
· NYU failed to stop the disturbance from being held and failed to shut it down in a timely manner. This failure to enforce its own policies on student conduct, its own policy on discrimination, and in support of Title VI protections also constitute violations of Title VI as well as the 2020 Resolution Agreement between NYU and OCR.
· NYU permitted its faculty employee (Professor Linda Luu) to cancel her class (a class that she was contractually obligated to hold) and instead, to use her class’s time period to join the disruptive antisemitic and anti-Israeli protest disturbance in NYU’s Bobst Library.
· NYU permitted its faculty employee (Professor Linda Luu) to deploy her NYU official
communications with her students to “invite” them to join her in participating at the disruptive antisemitic and anti-Israeli protest disturbance at Bobst Library. Note that the power imbalance between a professor and her students, means that such an “invitation” to participate in a political action comes with a great deal of explicit and implicit pressure to attend and lends one’s voice to the disturbance. Professor Luu’s invitation as part of her official communication to her NYU undergraduate class, bestows the university’s imprimatur and endorsement to anti-Zionism and to antisemitism.
· To date, NYU has failed to address this matter, failed to issue a public recognition, apology, condemnation or let alone a statement recognizing the inappropriate and improper nature of Professor Luu’s course cancelation, the invitation to have her students join her in an anti-Zionism, antisemitic protest held during her class time, and the inappropriate language used in an official communication between an NYU faculty member to NYU students.
· All of the above likely constitute an additional violation by NYU of the Resolution Agreement between NYU and the Office of Civil Rights as well as a new violation by NYU of Title VI.
The Text of the Agreement Supports OCR’s oversight and investigation into this claim
In the Resolution Agreement, NYU undertook to do three things: (i) review and revise its Non- Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy; (ii) conduct outreach to the University community, including a statement by NYU’s President, and (iii) train the University community on anti-Semitism.
In the Agreement, NYU agreed to revise its Non-discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy in several ways:
(i) including a statement that the University prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics, including against Jewish students;
(ii) setting forth the procedures for responding to a discrimination complaint;
(iii) including a description of the forms of anti-Semitism that can manifest in the University environment;
(iv) providing representative examples of discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics, including anti-Semitism; and
(v) including a statement respecting NYU’s commitment to academic freedom and free speech.
It appears that NYU has failed to fully comply with three different aspects of the Agreement. First, it did not fully implement the Agreement’s requirement that its new Policy describe the types of anti-Semitism that can manifest in the University environment. Second, it did not fully implement the Agreement’s requirement that its new Policy provide “representative examples” of discrimination based on anti- Semitism. Third, it appears that it failed to conduct outreach to the university community or train that community on Anti-Semitism. If NYU had done so, Professor Linda Luu would have understood that her actions and a representative of NYU in the classroom and her communications to her students would have fallen into the category of anti-Semitic and Anti-Zionist and that while as a private citizen she may have a protected “right” to maintain such beliefs, as an employee, she does not have the right to voice them as part of her teaching duties related to Visual Culture/Science and Technology MCC-UE 1411.
In addition to the above reported violation of Title VI committed by NYU and Professor Linda Luu, NYU has also failed to fully implement the actions they agreed to in their Resolution Agreement with OCR and thus remains in likely violation of the 2020 failures to uphold Title VI and to protect their Jewish American students. NYU’s choice to ignore some of the agreed upon duties outlined in the Resolution Agreement, when reviewed in the light of the above new violations, portrays both demonstrable institutional intransigence on the part of NYU’s administration as well as a clear disregard for their federally mandated duties to uphold Title VI and to protect their Jewish American students from discrimination and harassment as defined by OCR in
NYU’s New Policy Based on National Identity Discrimination Does Not Properly Describe Manifestations of Campus Anti-Semitism
NYU has not fully implemented the Resolution Agreement’s requirement to describe “the forms of anti-Semitism that can manifest in the University environment” in its new Policy. The Policy refers generally to “certain rhetorical and physical manifestations directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish institutions, and towards religious facilities.” This is taken from the leading global definition of anti-Semitism provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association. The IHRA Definition was incorporated into U.S. law in Executive Order 13899, which directs agencies to use the IHRA definition and its examples in evaluating allegations of anti-Semitism in federally funded programs. However, unlike IHRA, NYU’s Policy does not identify any particular manifestations of anti- Semitism. As a result, it fails to fully comply with the Resolution Agreement’s mandate to identify manifestations specific to “the University environment.”
Indeed, the new NYU Policy neither refers anywhere to the behaviors which prompted the original complaint or the forms of anti-Semitism at issue in that case and which continue to remain a problem on campus since. The complaint was prompted by acts including encouraging passersby to file frivolous noise complaints against students to prevent them from expressing their Jewish identity; vandalizing symbols associated with that identity; and disrupting events. None of these behaviors are mentioned in the Policy. It should be noted that the forms of anti-Jewish harassment which prompted the Resolution Agreement were deployed (be it intentional or not) against the NYU Jewish American students who received Professor Luu’s inappropriate and improper course communications regarding Gaza. It is painfully clear that NYU failed to comply with the Resolution Agreement and in doing so, has enabled and empowered additional violations of TITLE VI perpetrated by employees as part of their formal job duties.
Sincerely,
Adam Drisin
2nd Letter
Lloyd Joe (he/him/his)
OEO Investigator
Office of Equal Opportunity
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
665 Broadway, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10012
Mr. Lloyd Joe,
Thank you for your timely response to my letter.
In fact, I do have a number of questions that I would greatly appreciate a response to, and which, when answered, will greatly assist in helping many of NYU's concerned alumni, concerned parents of current students better understand what NYU will be doing to ensure that all of its students are fully protected and that violators of policies and procedures are handled both appropriately and fairly and in accordance with the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education's policies .
I must begin by pointing out that after reviewing NYU's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment webpage, I was quite surprised to discover neither Title VI protections nor Section 504 protections are mentioned anywhere on the aforementioned webpage. As I'm sure you know, Title VI and Section 504 protections, protectees, policies and procedures are no less important than Title IX protections, protectees, policies and procedures. Your webpage appears to prioritize Title IX protection over all other Civil Rights. As such, I would strongly suggest that NYU rethink its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment webpage in order to ensure that it no longer give the impression that some Civil Rights and some protectees are less important than others.
I am sure you are equally aware that the Department of Education has interpreted Title VI to reach religious discrimination when it overlaps with race and/or national origin discrimination. As the Department of Education, Congress, and the courts respond to allegations of religious discrimination at schools, they consider whether and how Title VI applies to such claims. Educational institutions may be liable under Title VI when they treat students differently because of their race or national origin (known as disparate treatment claim) and when they fail to respond appropriately to racial or national origin harassment that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it deprives students of access to educational benefits or opportunities (known as a hostile education environment claim). To be liable to a claim, a school must have exhibited deliberate indifference – that is, its response must be clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances.
Returning to your response to my initial complaint, I do have the following specific questions that I am trusting can be answered by NYU. Please note that these are neither rhetorical nor abstract questions – I'd actually appreciate a reasoned and timely reply in order to better understand how NYU views the unfolding issues related to what many see as the deeply troubling targeting of two student cohorts at NYU; the Jewish American student cohort and the Israeli foreign student cohort. Of concern to many of us is what appears as NYU’s apparent indifference to these two groups. An indifference that may soon be seen to rise to the level of disparate treatment.
FACT: Professor Linda Luu, in her Dec. 12, 2024 communication to her students, notes that she will be cancelling her regularly scheduled class and that instead of teaching it, will be participating in a picket line at Bobst Library (an act of civil disobedience). She then explicitly “invite(s) anyone from class to the picket line where I’ll (Ms. Luu) be”.
QUESTION: Please explain if this communication constitutes “reasonable behavior” for an NYU professor and if any part of this communication is deemed by NYU to breach NYU’s HR policies and procedures, NYU’s teaching contract for Ph.D. students, NYU’s faculty handbook, NYU’s graduate student handbook (she is a Ph.D. student)?
FACT: Professor Luu followed through with her stated plan and in fact was an active participant in a disruptive rally that deployed verbal and graphic hostile attacks against two discrete groups; Israeli citizens and Students of the Jewish faith/culture. NYU has cohorts of both Jewish American students and Israeli Citizens who are full-time students. each of these cohorts are likely deemed to be protected from discrimination and harassment under Title VI because of their religion, and/or race, and/or national origin.
QUESTION 1: Does NYU believe that it acted reasonably and in a timely manner to stop the discriminatory and harassing language that Ms. Luu and other yelled out from what she called “the picket line” in Bobst Library?
QUESTION 2: What actions did NYU take to shut down what Ms. Luu described as “the picket line” once it became aware of the discriminatory and hostile tone of Ms. Luu and the other picketers in Bobst Library?
QUESTION 3: Does NYU believe Professor Luu maintained the Rights under the terms of NYU’s various policies and procedures to cancel her class and participate in a picket line in lieu of holding class?
QUESTION 4: Does NYU believe that Ms. Luu maintained the Rights to invite her students to join her in the picket line against NYU and against two protected groups and to do so during their regularly scheduled class meeting time?
QUESTION 5: Does NYU believe that failing to take disciplinary action against Professor Luu for participating in, and inviting her students to join her in a discriminatory and hostile action against NYU and two protected groups would meet the Office of Civil Rights’ threshold of “deliberate indifference”?
FACT: There is no mention of TITLE VI or Section 504 protections, policies or procedures on NYU's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment webpage. Nor is there an explanation of policies or procedures for students who believe they have faced discrimination covered by Title VI and Section 504.
QUESTION 1: Does NYU maintain specific policies and procedures on Title VI and Section 504 discrimination and where can they be found?
QUESTION 2: Explain where the policies, and procedures for filing Title VI complaints are made available to students, and employees on the NYU's website?
I very much look forward to your timely response to these questions.
Sincerely,
Adam Drisin