New York’s Barnard College settles antisemitism lawsuit filed by Jewish students

NEW YORK — Barnard College in New York City, an affiliate of Columbia University, agreed to take measures to combat antisemitism in a lawsuit settlement with Jewish students, a law firm representing the students said on Monday.

The US lawsuit was filed last year against the trustees of Columbia and Barnard in the federal Southern District court of New York. It argued that Columbia and Barnard failed to protect Israeli and Jewish students and enforce university policies against protesters as anti-Israel activists riled the campuses after the October 2023 Hamas invasion and onslaught.

The plaintiffs claimed that the harassment of Jews violated the federal Title VI Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination at federally funded institutions. The law is widely used by pro-Israel advocates against universities that receive federal funding, like Columbia and Barnard.

Barnard is a women’s liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia. The two schools operate separately, but are deeply intertwined and located next to each other in Manhattan. The anti-Israel student activist group leading the protests, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, is active on both campuses. Most of the student plaintiffs were students at Columbia.

The lawsuit said students had been harassed with language like “Fuck the Jews” and were laughed at by professors while counter-protesting on campus. Some of the students suffered “immense stress” due to their treatment that interfered with their studies. Some dropped classes or attended remotely, and others avoided classes taught by professors active in anti-Israel protests.

The student plaintiffs were backed by the advocacy groups Students Against Antisemitism and the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, and represented by the Kasowitz LLP law firm.

The law firm announced the settlement in a Monday statement. Columbia was a defendant in the lawsuit, but was not a part of the settlement and did not respond to requests for comment. Court filings confirmed that the lawsuit against Barnard had been dismissed.

Barnard President Laura Ann Rosenbury said: “Antisemitism, discrimination, and harassment in any form are antithetical to the values Barnard College champions.”

“Today’s settlement reflects our ongoing commitment to maintaining a campus that is safe, welcoming, and inclusive for all members of our community,” she said in a statement Barnard shared with The Times of Israel.

In the settlement, Barnard agreed to implement measures to combat antisemitism and discrimination against Israelis. The college will establish a Title VI coordinator to respond to allegations of non-compliance with the law, educate the campus community about antisemitism and anti-discrimination policy, and require students and faculty to do training on campus discrimination policies.

At the start of the fall semester, the president’s office will begin releasing an annual message, telling the campus that it has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination, including against Jews and Israelis.

Barnard will expand its relationship with the affiliated Jewish Theological Seminary, and beginning in the fall semester, Barnard students will be able to take courses at the seminary free of cost, the statement said.

The college vowed to maintain its policies limiting on-campus protests and face-masking, and will not recognize or negotiate with Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

The statement also said the college’s endowment “is not a vehicle for expressing political positions, which includes taking actions for the purpose of penalizing the government of a country or the commercial/financial activity within that country,” in an apparent rejection of calls to divest from Israel.

The settlement comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration exerts heavy pressure on universities, including Columbia, to combat antisemitism on campuses.

The courts have been a battleground for US antisemitism cases — on universities and in other areas — since before the Gaza war, in an evolving struggle that has gained steam since the October 2023 Hamas attack. Some universities, like Columbia, are being battered by both pro- and anti-Israel groups.