I remember when Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1963 barred entry of two students, James Hood and Vivian Malone, to the University of Alabama because of their race.
The response from President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was electric. First, Deputy US Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach personally confronted the governor at the University of Alabama and sought in vain to convince him to desist. Kennedy reacted by federalizing the Alabama National Guard.
The two students returned to the university but, this time, Gen. Henry Graham was there with a National Guard unit to assure their entry unmolested by the governor or anyone else.
The following year, under President Lyndon Johnson, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. It included Title VI, protecting students’ right not to be discriminated against in schools, colleges or universities receiving federal assistance based on their race or national origin.
This prohibition encompasses any discrimination, including harassment, based on a student’s actual or perceived 1) shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics or 2) citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity.
The history of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its expansion over time is inspirational. Yet there is still one type of discrimination and harassment that survives and is even gaslighted: Discrimination against Jews.
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There are forces hard at work discriminating against and harassing Jews on college campuses, as detailed in a number of lawsuits filed against offending colleges and universities. Congressional hearings on the subject have shed light on the wrongdoing. The problem is pervasive and there does not appear to be an end in sight. Indeed, the groups leading the Jew-hatred efforts are threatening to renew their offensive conduct at the beginning of the new academic year.
The situation is so dire that Federal Judge Mark Scarsi in California issued a preliminary injunction against UCLA on Aug. 13. In his ruling, Scarsi noted:
In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion.
Among other things, Scarsi enjoined UCLA against knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students (including based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish State of Israel) from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities and campus areas.
Shockingly, instead of settling the matter by agreeing to a plan of action to prevent a reoccurrence of the offensive conduct, UCLA callously appealed.
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The situation is too fraught with danger to allow it to fester in the courts. It’s time for a Kennedyesque public show of force by the president and Department of Justice of the sort that occurred in 1963.
DOJ should intervene in the case in support of the plaintiffs and the preliminary injunction and against UCLA. Federal assistance to UCLA should be suspended under Title VI until the matter is favorably resolved.
The president should federalize the National Guard and ready it for duty in the new academic year to secure the UCLA campus so that all students, including Jewish ones, can freely and safely attend classes and use all of the university facilities. There must not be a repeat of the offensive conduct described in the complaint.
This proactive approach must be applied to all colleges and universities that have experienced similar problems and are threatened with new outbreaks during the upcoming academic year.
There are many similar cases pending, including one involving Harvard, in which a court recently denied a motion to dismiss and ruled the case can proceed.
The situation of invidious discrimination against Jews and harassment on campus is illegal, immoral and intolerable and must not be countenanced. The time for action is now.