“We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students,” the federal agency said.

By JNS staff

Columbia University violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by “acting with deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment of Jewish students from Oct. 7, 2023, through the present,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated on Thursday.

Over the course of 19 months, Columbia “continually failed to protect Jewish students,” the U.S. agency said.

“The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety and well-being,” stated Anthony Archeval, acting director of the agency’s civil rights office.

“We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students,” Archeval stated.

The ways that the university acted with “deliberate indifference with regard to the hostile environment created by some of its students,” per the department, include failing to create effective processes for reporting Jew-hatred until summer 2024 and failing to follow its policies and procedures in response to complaints from Jewish students and about student misconduct against Jewish students.

Columbia also didn’t investigate or punish vandals, including in examples of “repeated drawing of swastikas and other universally recognized hate images” nor did it enforce “its time, place and manner restrictions for protests held on campus, such as inside and around its academic buildings, residence halls and libraries since Oct. 7, 2023,” per the U.S. agency.