Columbia University accused of anti-Semitic discrimination in first case related to Trump executive order
Marcy Oster
JTA - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Mon Dec 23 2019
A federal complaint has been filed against Columbia University accusing the school of anti-Semitic discrimination.
It is the first case filed since President Donald Trump’s executive order on combating anti-Semitism, which grants Jewish students the same protections as other minority groups.
The complaint requests a formal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights into alleged anti-Semitic discrimination at Columbia. It was filed by the Lawfare Project on behalf of a Jewish Israeli-American undergraduate who says he has been a victim of anti-Semitic discrimination over the past year.
Jonathan Karten told The Jerusalem Post that he decided to go forward with the complaint after he learned that a well-known professor in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia had endorsed Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Terrorist brigade, “with impunity.” Karten’s uncle, Sharon Edri, was kidnapped and murdered by a Hamas cell in Israel in 1996....
