The U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has cleared the University of California at Irvine of allegations that it violated federal laws against discrimination based on national origin by failing to do enough to respond to anti-Semitism on its campus.
The civil-rights office had conducted an extensive investigation of the university’s handling of alleged incidents of anti-Semitism in response to a complaint filed in October 2004 by the Zionist Organization of America.
In a letter sent to the university’s chancellor, Michael V. Drake, last month and released by university officials on Tuesday, the civil-rights office said it had concluded that there was “insufficient evidence to support the complainant’s allegation that the university failed to respond promptly and effectively to complaints by Jewish students that they were harassed and subjected to a hostile environment.”
The civil-rights offices declined to investigate several incidents alleged to have occurred more than 180 days before the complaint was filed. Of the more-recent incidents that it did examine, it concluded that “in all instances” the university “took prompt and effective action.”
In the case of an Israeli student who alleged that she had received hateful anonymous e-mail messages and had been pushed by a Muslim student, for example, the student herself said the university did all it could in response to the e-mail messages, and university officials looked into the alleged pushing incident and gave her the option of filing a complaint, which she declined.
In some cases, the civil-rights office did not regard incidents described in the Zionist Organization of America’s complaint as amounting to national-origin discrimination. After looking into and attending annual weeklong events protesting Israel’s policies toward the Palestinian people, for example, the federal office’s investigators acknowledged that much of the speech at the events was offensive to Jewish students, but said such speech was aimed at Israel’s policies, and not Jewish students’ national origin.
The Zionist group’s letter of complaint also alleged that Jewish students were threatened and intimidated by the presence of Muslim and Arab students who congregated in a lounge near the office of the dean of students, but the civil-rights office found no evidence that the Jewish students passing the lounge ever were confronted or endangered. All the Muslim and Arab students had allegedly done was glare and speak in Arabic, which the Jewish students did not understand, the civil-rights office said.
Kevin S. O’Grady, the director of the Anti-Defamation League for the Orange County and Long Beach region of California, said he was disappointed that the civil-rights office did not look into some of the earlier incidents covered in the complaint, such as the destruction of a Holocaust memorial. He said the university had taken several steps to ease tensions between Jewish and Muslim students on the campus, but he remains distressed that it continues to provide a forum for speakers who call for the destruction of Israel. “Given that environment, there remain students on campus who are going to feel intimidated,” he said.
Chancellor Drake responded to the federal office’s letter by issuing a written statement saying officials there were “very gratified with the outcome and closure of this matter.”
Mr. Drake said, “We are firmly committed to freedom of speech and open discourse, which are central to our missions of teaching, research, and public service, and equally committed to maintaining a safe, nonthreatening environment for all members of our campus community.”
