The U.S. Department of Education is probing alleged Jew-hatred at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, a private performing arts college in New York, after the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League filed a civil rights complaint, the groups said on Thursday.
On Nov. 9, 2023, a month after Oct. 7, students slid materials stating that “resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Palestine will be free” into the Jewish student’s dorm room. The Jewish student reported the incident to the school, which determined that four students targeted her and violated the school’s harassment and discrimination policies, according to the complaint.
The school implemented a mutual no-contact order between the Jewish student and the four others and barred the four from going onto the same floor as the Jewish student’s dorm room. But the four later “weaponized” that no-contact order and retaliated by excluding her from a group chat for students in her program. The four students were part of the chat, per the complaint. (JNS sought comment from the school and the department.)
The four also tried to isolate her socially. One would interrupt her conversations and talk to the person with whom she was speaking. That forced the Jewish student to walk away, since she wasn’t allowed to engage with the student under the no-contact order, according to the complaint.
That alleged behavior continued the following year, and three of the four students were placed in the same dorm as the Jewish student even though she requested that they be placed elsewhere, the complaint alleges. It further alleges that one of the four visited a friend on her floor in the dorm despite being barred from that the floor, and the school didn’t take action against him.
The Jewish student eventually left the school, the complaint states.
Sarah Golabek-Goldman, director of legal initiatives for the Brandeis Center, told JNS that she is “heartened” that the Education Department is opening an investigation.
“We want the school to adopt policies and practices to ensure that Jewish students are able to report when harassment occurs and that they will be protected,” she said.
“No student should have an experience like the Jewish student in this case, where she reported the harassment and then she was treated like the harassers, and experienced only more harassment,” she said.
