Scripps College in Claremont is under federal investigation after a complaint alleged it violated the Civil Rights Act by failing to address antisemitism on campus.
For example, students reported antisemitic slurs and one said she was told to remove her Star of David necklace, the complaint alleged.
RELATED: Jewish students, speakers harassed at UC Riverside, Cal State San Bernardino, rabbi says
Scripps is one of several universities across the country that is part of a probe by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights for alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Washington, D.C.-based human rights law firm Louis D. Brandeis Center reported.
The department opened the investigations Tuesday, March 18.
Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal money and aims to ensure equal access and prevent discrimination in federally funded programs.
The investigation was prompted by a Feb. 24 complaint by the center, the Anti-Defamation League and Arnold & Porter, another Washington, D.C. law firm, alleging the university “repeatedly abandoned Jewish and Israeli students targeted by antisemitic harassment.”
Spokespersons for Scripps College, part of The Claremont Colleges group of seven area private universities, and the Department of Education could not be reached for comment Thursday, March 20, or Friday, March 21.
In the complaint, the firm alleges several instances of antisemitic harassment occurred since October 2023:
- A student wearing a Star of David was told to remove her Jewish necklace.
- That student heard antisemitic comments two to three times a week, including remarks that Jews are immoral and “rich and control the media.”
- The student was ostracized by her peers for attending weekly Shabbat dinners and studying Torah with the campus rabbi.
- Multiple articles in the Scripps student newspaper contained antisemitic tropes.
- The Motley Coffeehouse, “described as the heart of the Scripps College campus,” has repeatedly excluded and become an unwelcoming place for Jewish students. The coffeehouse closed in October 2024 but reopened in November.
- The coffeehouse is accused of refusing to hire a “Zionist,” and its student employees complained that they did not want to associate with “crazy Zionists.”
Antisemitic feelings have erupted at colleges after a Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that left 1,200 people dead and triggered a war between Israel and Gaza, said Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives for the Brandeis Center.
“There has been a concerted effort on many college and university campuses across the country to shun, marginalize, ostracize, exclude and otherwise mistreat — often in unlawful ways — Jewish students who express certain aspects of their Jewish identity, their Jewish ancestral and ethnic identity connected to Israel,” she said.
Katz-Prober said that for many years universities have not properly addressed the mistreatment of Jewish students and that the Oct. 7 attack exacerbated the issue.
“They mistake what is actually unlawful mistreatment of Jewish students in the form of harassment and discrimination,” she said. “They mistake that for political controversy, and the problem therefore, has been left to fester and grow over the years, and after Oct. 7, predictably exploded to historic proportions.”
Katz-Prober said that all students should be free from harassment and discrimination and that schools and administrators are responsible for that.
“We’re looking for the university to take steps that will affect systemic change at the university to ensure that the hostile environment for Jewish students is eliminated,” Katz-Prober said.
Campuses across the country erupted with pro-Palestinian protests in spring 2024.
Students built encampments on campuses and demanded that schools cut ties with Israel. The protests led to several arrests and the suspension of students at The Claremont Colleges. Pomona College suspended 12 students and banned other students in November after a student takeover of Carnegie Hall in October.
Scripps, a women’s liberal arts college, is one of several Southern California universities under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.
The department announced that Cal State San Bernardino is under investigation and suspected of violating part of the Civil Rights Act in admissions for its doctoral program.
In June, Jewish students at UC Riverside and Cal State San Bernardino reported an increase in hate crimes and harassment on campus, something Rabbi Emerita Suzanne Singer, of Temple Beth El Riverside, said the campuses did nothing about.
And a federal task force, announced earlier this month, will probe 10 U.S. college campuses, including USC and UCLA, with the goal of combatting antisemitism and reported incidents since October 2023.
The task force comes after an executive order created by President Donald Trump that is aimed to “root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.”
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