College and University Monitor

Just a few short weeks after President Donald Trump signed a historic executive order aimed at anti-Semitism, the first complaint has been filed using the directive in a new lawsuit.

A Columbia University student is alleging anti-Semitism on the campus and has filed a complaint with the Department of Education, accusing the school’s administration of doing nothing about a known “hostile environment,” according to a press release from The Lawfare Project.

The complaint was filed with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights last week by the legal group representing a Jewish Israeli-American student named Jonathan Karten who “has been a victim of anti-Semitic discrimination over the past year.”

“Too often, Jewish and Israeli students are the target of bigotry and discrimination, with politics used as an excuse,” the press release stated. “Thanks to President Trump’s newly issued Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, Jewish students are now granted the same protections as other minority groups, and anti-Semitic harassment like Jonathan experienced is expressly prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Trump’s order, signed earlier this month, took aim at anti-Semitism and targeted college campuses by interpreting Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protection against anti-Semitism with the Department of Education empowered to withhold federal funding from any college or educational program found to be in violation....