Occidental College has settled with two nonprofit organizations focused on combating antisemitism over a federal Office for Civil Rights complaint that the campus was a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students in the weeks and months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Under the settlement, reached with the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the college agreed to take sweeping steps to protect Jewish students, including, among other things:
- Updating the institution’s discrimination policy to outline examples of discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry;
- Adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism for evaluating incidents of harassment and discrimination;
- Implementing new required Title VI trainings for all students, staff and faculty;
- Creating new time, place and manner policies for when and where protests may take place;
- Launching two campus climate surveys, one of which will include questions about students’ experiences of antisemitism; and
- Appointing two new roles: an associate director of Jewish student life and a Muslim student life coordinator.
The original complaint against Occidental, a private college in Los Angeles, was filed in May and alleged that the college had not adequately responded to antisemitic incidents on campus, including Jewish and Israeli students being called slurs and told to “go back to the gas chambers.” Multiple Jewish and Israeli students with on-campus jobs also reported that antisemitic harassment and bias forced them to quit their jobs.
“This agreement demonstrates Occidental College’s commitment to counter all forms of contemporary antisemitism and underscores their recognition that effectively combatting antisemitism requires understanding the relationship between Jewish identity, Israel, and Zionism,” Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center, said in a press release. “We are gratified by the school’s engagement in meaningful discussions at the highest levels of the administration, and we are heartened that Occidental has committed to creating a safer environment for Jewish students. When implemented, this agreement will help ensure that Jewish students are able to learn and thrive in an environment free from anti-Semitic hate, discrimination, and harassment.”
In a statement on the college’s website, Occidental president Tom Stritikus, who joined the college in July, wrote, “As I believe this Resolution demonstrates, antisemitism is antithetical to the College’s values, and discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students should be unequivocally rejected in our community.”
