Biden admin ‘in hurry’ to resolve Title VI probes ‘before lights turn off’

December 24, 2024

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Concernered Jewish Parents and Teachers of LA

“It’s very important to note that these resolutions are agreements and not orders from a court,” the Deborah Project told JNS.

(Dec. 24, 2024 / JNS)

The U.S. Department of Education typically announces new federal investigations of educational institutions and districts, under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, on its website on Tuesdays. While it may announce a handful to half a dozen new probes in a week, it has been much less common for the department, and its Office for Civil Rights, to say that it has resolved a complaint with a school or district.

This month, the department stated that it entered into agreements with Temple University, the University of California, the School District of Philadelphia and Cincinnati University, including in investigations about Jew-hatred on campuses.

JNS sought comment from Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, about why the Biden administration appears to have picked up the pace.

“I have no doubt the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights is in a hurry to complete the investigations and settle the issues raised before the lights turn off for this administration,” she told JNS. “That is why we are seeing a flurry of Title VI complaints reach resolutions in the form of agreements.”

Lowenthal Marcus cautioned that the department’s resolutions are agreements, not court orders.

“The Department of Education is a federal government agency, and the opinions it issues or agreements it obtains from the defendants—in these cases, academic institutions—are not binding as precedent,” she said. “They can be relied upon merely as persuasive by litigants and courts.”

But in the “waning hours of the Biden administration,” there is good news for Jews, according to Lowenthal Marcus.

“At least its Department of Education is recognizing that antisemitism, when it fits within the rubric of shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, can be covered by Title VI,” she told JNS.

“What we haven’t seen to the dismay of many, including me, in these agreements in contrast to earlier agreements is explicit recognition that the form of antisemitism that has skyrocketed since Oct. 7, 2023— anti-Zionism—is a violation of Title VI,” she added. “We’ll have to wait for the next administration for that to be rectified.”

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Is antisemitism in school settings illegal?

Acts of Antisemitism can be the basis of a legal violation, so long as those acts create an interference with the ability to do one's job or to participate in one's educational experience.

Don't teachers have free speech rights, so they can't be punished for saying antisemitic things?

K-12 public school teachers do NOT have free speech rights in the classroom or whenever they are performing their official duties. Private school teachers have greater leeway, as do college professors.

Do anti-Zionist/anti-Israel assertions constitute a violation of anti-discrimination laws?

It depends. The U.S. government has slowly begun to recognize that anti-Zionism can constitute antisemitism, and so is subject to anti-discrimination laws, when such hostility goes beyond merely criticizing the Israeli government for various policies but instead attacks Zionists or Israelis for things the speaker doesn't criticize other countries for doing. This is why it is so important for institutions and governments to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and its examples.

Discrimination in education is governed by Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But Title VI doesn't include religion as a protected category. So is antisemitism not considered discriminatory under Title VI?

Someone who is Jewish and believes that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state may have a claim under Title VI under the protected categories of Shared Ancestry and Ethnicity.