University of Oregon accused of not reporting anti-Semitic incidents

An employee and a student of the University of Oregon have filed a federal complaint alleging that the school failed to report anti-Semitic hate crimes.

According to the complaint filed in September, which was shared with the Register-Guard daily, the university listed only one hate crime in each year of 2017 and 2018 in its annual report.

The complaint alleges that there were at least 30 incidents on the campus, most of them anti-Semitic, that were not included, including a man distributing white supremacist literature on the campus who was arrested with a knife.

Under the federal law known as the Clery Act, universities that receive federal financing must maintain and publicize a record of crime in and around campus.

The university’s director of public affairs told the Register-Guard that the unrecorded incidents don’t meet federal criteria for reportable hate crimes.

“While UO does not condone the distribution of white supremacist posters, this conduct does not meet the definition of a Clery Act hate crime and thus would not be included in the annual crime statistics disclosure,” Kay Jarvis said.