Since last month, Townhall has reported how college students across the country have signed and published statements blaming Israel and the U.S. for Hamas’ invasion. Some schools have had pro-Palestine rallies where students have continued to spread anti-Semitic rhetoric.
In addition, Townhall reported that students at Columbia University staged a walkout from one of former first lady Hillary Clinton’s classes to “shame” the school for how they believe it allowed its students who signed a statement against Israel to be “publicly shamed.”
Some Jewish students at New York University filed a lawsuit against the school for failing to handle the increase in antisemitism on campus that has left them feeling “under siege.”
Reportedly, NYU has dealt with “numerous instances” of antisemitism on campus over the past ten years, according to the New York Post. However, these instances increased after Hamas launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, three students claimed in the lawsuit (via NYP):
Mobs of students have harassed and intimidated NYU’s Jewish population — which is regularly confronted with chants of “Hitler was right,” and “gas the Jews,” among other hateful phrases, according to the lawsuit.
Additionally, many students and faculty have “enthusiastically endorsed” Hamas’ deadly assault on the Jewish state, the suit states.
When Jewish students plead for help from administrators, complaints from them are either “ignored, slow-walked, or met with gaslighting,” the lawsuit alleges.
As a result, the students have been left “traumatized” and feel like they are treated as “second-class citizens” at NYU because of their Jewish identity and ancestry, the suit states.
“The effect of NYU’s inaction and, indeed, complicity in the torrent of anti-Jewish hatred that has engulfed its campus has been the normalization of antisemitism in the NYU community,” part of the lawsuit states.
“Whereas pro-Hamas faculty and students are permitted to engage in vicious antisemitic hate speech, Jewish students are told to keep quiet, maintain a low profile, avoid making waves, and call a wellness hotline.”
Jewish students sue NYU over ‘egregious’ antisemitism on campus that’s left them ‘under siege’ https://t.co/SA1scaB4QN pic.twitter.com/pmmsoSPQ3X
— New York Post (@nypost) November 15, 2023
The three students suing the university want the court to force NYU to implement measures surrounding antisemitism.
“NYU’s deliberate indifference toward the plight of its Jewish students under siege by egregious antisemitism has been outrageous,” one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Marc Kasowitz, said in a statement to the Post.
“We are asking the Court to compel NYU to comply with the Civil Rights Act, its own purported policies, and elementary human decency, which to date the University has failed and refused to do on its own,” Kasowitz added.
A spokesperson for NYU told the outlet that the university is looking forward to challenging the “one-sided narrative.”
