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TKenneth Marcus, head of civil rights at the Department of Education, reopened Tuesday a case of Rutgers University, alleging that the college allowed discrimination against Jewish students. Marcus seeks to examine the case, adopting a broader definition of anti-Semitism, reports the New York Times.
Marcus told the Zionist Organization of America, the group that had filed the initial lawsuit, in a letter that he was interested in reviewing one of three allegations in particular. In 2011, a pro-Palestinian group called Belief Awareness Knowledge and Action organized an event called "Never Again for Anyone". An email was used as proof that the organizer of the event started charging fees after "150 Zionists" showed up. Palestine Legal, a Palestinian rights group, said fees were only billed after Rutgers Hillel and other pro-Israel groups sent a message to their members protesting the event. the rental space.
During the initial review of the case, the Department of Education found that there was no evidence that Jewish participants were targeted selectively to pay the costs associated with the event. Rutgers also investigated allegations of bias at the time.
Marcus adopted a definition of anti-Semitism in the letter addressed to ZOA last month and widely accepted by government agencies. This definition says that to delegitimize the state of Israel or to make it a double standard, unexpected of other democratic nations, is anti-Semitic. Marcus plans to reevaluate the evidence in this case, using this definition, to find out whether Rutgers participated in ethnic discrimination rather than religious discrimination.
According to Marcus, the use of the phrase "150 Zionists" in the pro-Palestinian group's e-mail "could originate from a perception of Jewish ancestry or ethnic characteristics common to the group". He added that "in such cases, it is important to determine whether terms such as" Zionist "are actually codes for" Jew "."
Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill said in an interview with the New York Times that the agency's civil rights division aggressively enforces the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on race , ethnicity or national origin.
Before Marcus became head of civil rights at the Department of Education, he was working at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization that seeks to "promote civil rights and humans of the Jewish people and to promote justice for all. "He also wrote in a Politico column in 2017 on the need for a definition of anti-semitism within the department. "In the absence of a definition, the office is blocked by antisemitic affairs and fails in its mission of protecting Jewish students."
Marcus wrote in his letter to ZOA that "the pro-Israel point of view of an individual himself – or, as a result, any point of view on the policies of the State of Israel, the Israeli conflict- Palestinian law or civil rights law, but "discrimination based on ancestry or shared ethnic characteristics, real or perceived – which may include discrimination against Jewish or Muslim students – is . "
The reopening of the Rutgers affair comes after the transfer of the US embassy to Israel to Jerusalem by the Trump administration, the cessation of aid to the Palestinian Authority and the announcement of the closure of the liberation of Palestine in Washington. Palestinian organizations and human rights organizations have protested against Marcus' confirmation, fearing to use the Education to Department program to promote a pro-Israel agenda.
Rahul Saksena, of Palestine Legal, said in an interview with the New York Times about the case: "You'd think OCR would have its hands full these days and use its limited resources" to reopen a case Department has spent years investigating and had been closed.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos "has made it clear that O.C.R. will consider the facts specific to each case and will determine accordingly, "said Hill, the spokesperson for the Department of Education.
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