Jewish students sue NYU over ‘egregious’ antisemitism on campus that’s left them ‘under siege’
New York University has failed to tackle a sharp rise in antisemitism on campus following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel — leaving some Jewish students feeling “under siege,” according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The prestigious Big Apple university has dealt with numerous instances of antisemitism over the last decade that sharply rose after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and the Jewish state began to retaliate on the Gaza Strip, three Jewish students said in the Manhattan federal court suit.
Mobs of students have harassed and intimidated NYU’s Jewish population — which is regularly confronted with chants of “Hitler was right,” and “gas the Jews,” among other hateful phrases, according to the lawsuit.
Additionally, many students and faculty have “enthusiastically endorsed” Hamas’ deadly assault on the Jewish state, the suit states.
When Jewish students plead for help from administrators, complaints from them are either “ignored, slow-walked, or met with gaslighting,” the lawsuit alleges.
As a result, the students have been left “traumatized” and feel like they are treated as “second-class citizens” at NYU because of their Jewish identity and ancestry, the suit states.
“The effect of NYU’s inaction and, indeed, complicity in the torrent of anti-Jewish hatred that has engulfed its campus has been the normalization of antisemitism in the NYU community,” part of the lawsuit states.
“Whereas pro-Hamas faculty and students are permitted to engage in vicious antisemitic hate speech, Jewish students are told to keep quiet, maintain a low profile, avoid making waves, and call a wellness hotline.”
The three students suing the school want a court to force NYU to enact measures that will better combat antisemitism, including disciplining students and staff that are behind the hateful actions.
“NYU’s deliberate indifference toward the plight of its Jewish students under siege by egregious antisemitism has been outrageous,” one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Marc Kasowitz, said in a statement.
“We are asking the Court to compel NYU to comply with the Civil Rights Act, its own purported policies, and elementary human decency, which to date the University has failed and refused to do on its own.”
A spokesperson for NYU said the university looks forward to “challenging this lawsuit’s one-sided narrative.”
“The assertions in this suit do not accurately describe conditions on our campus or the many steps NYU has been taking to fight antisemitism and keep the campus safe,” spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement to The Post.
“Antisemitism violates our rules; we take the issues of antisemitism and any other forms of hate extremely seriously, and we are committed to safeguarding our community and providing an environment in which all students can live and learn in peace.”
He noted NYU, which has a campus in Tel Aviv, was one of the first US universities to condemn the Oct. 7 attack and has a large academic presence in Israel.
“NYU looks forward to setting the record straight, to challenging this lawsuit’s one-sided narrative, to making clear the many efforts NYU has made to combat antisemitism and provide a safe environment for Jewish students and non-Jewish students, and to prevailing in court,” Beckman also said.
Additional reporting by Ben Kochman
