After October 7, Columbia turned into a ‘total cesspool of antisemitism and Jew hatred,’ the student’s lawyer told NR.
A Jewish student who was booted from her academic program at Columbia University is suing the school, alleging unlawful discrimination and a hostile educational environment due to rampant antisemitism following October 7.
After October 7, Columbia turned into a “total cesspool of antisemitism and Jew hatred,” Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project, a legal advocacy organization representing plaintiff and orthodox Jew Mackenzie Forrest, told National Review.
“We’ve seen pro-Hamas mobs run rampant on campus, blocking the entrance to classrooms, celebrating the terrorist attacks,” she added. “We’ve seen the school tolerate genocidal chants, calling for the elimination of Jews and the Jewish state. There’s been verbal attacks, physical attacks against students.”
In an October 19 Zoom meeting with her advisor, Forrest raised safety concerns about being a Jew on campus. She mentioned the university president’s October 18 email that promised “special accommodations” to students to cope with the troubling circumstances. Forrest’s fears were based on the statements of Shai Davidai, the Columbia professor who said campus was not safe for Jews and that he would not send his own children there. Forrest also cited protesters blocking access to campus and the social-work building during unauthorized protests, sit-ins and teach-ins, according to the complaint.
Within Columbia, CSSW has been particularly notorious for anti-Israel radicalism. In December, Columbia Social Workers 4 Palestine organized a “teach-in and discussion” that called Hamas’s brutal onslaught a “Palestinian counteroffensive.” On October 7, Hamas murdered over 1,200 Israelis and took around 240 others captive, perpetrating war crimes such as torture, rape, and beheadings. CSSW subsequently shut down the event following backlash.
Forrest was also unnerved by violent episodes on campus, such as the one in which a Jewish student was physically assaulted. Multiple Jewish students have also been verbally assaulted and harassed at Columbia. Alarmed by the pattern, Forrest reported the atmosphere of antisemitism to administrators.
She then requested to complete her coursework for the semester over Zoom, but was denied. Forrest was instead told that she “is the only person feeling unsafe,” the complaint said.
Despite not receiving negative feedback or indication that her field work was unsatisfactory, the school sent Forrest “fabricated reasons” as to why she was not meeting the program requirements, Goldstein said. In weekly meetings with her supervisor, Forrest was never told she had done anything wrong.
“She was going to fail unless she left the program,” the lawyer added. “She was threatened with a failing grade, which would ruin her ability to move forward with her degree, and she was forced to leave the program…They grant students to take classes over Zoom all the time and for some reason she was denied the ability.”
Ahead of Hamas’s invasion of Israel, Forrest was first reprimanded for seeking a work exemption for the Jewish sabbath, according to the complaint. The school pressured her to get permission from her rabbi to violate the day of observance.
“They made her feel terrible about needing this accommodation,” Goldstein said. “They begrudgingly gave her one but only after the weekend was over, leaving her to wonder what would happen if she would be penalized.”
Forrest is accusing Columbia of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and New York human rights law that guarantees equal access to education facilities.
“We’re alleging breach of contract and we’re asking for specifically injunctive relief to prohibit Columbia from continuing its discriminatory practices, and to require the university to enforce its anti-discrimination harassment policies including whatever reforms that need to be made to combat antisemitism on campus,” Goldstein said.
Columbia declined to comment about the pending litigation.
Goldstein noted that antisemitism investigations concerning college campuses have been unfairly lumped in with “Islamaphobia” investigations.
“The truth is, people are not going around campus chanting, ‘Death to the Muslims!’,” she said. “They’re chanting ‘Death to the Jews’. It’s the ultimate gaslighting and we have to push back against this false linkage between the two issues because in a social justice context, it completely denies the very unique experience and trauma that the Jewish community is facing right now and the very real fact that antisemitism is through the roof.”
In addition to breaching its contractual obligations by failing to provide a safe educational environment free from discrimination and harassment, Columbia has engaged in deceptive acts and false advertising under New York general business law, the complaint argues. Columbia has been misleading Jewish students regarding the safety and inclusivity of their school, it said.
“There have to be consequences,” Goldstein said. “People have to be fired. The faulty and the staff and anyone who’s part of the administration who’s been tolerating and facilitating this unlawful antisemitic discrimination has to go.”