Civil Rights Bureau investigates allegations of anti-Semitism – The GW Hatchet

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Media Credit: File Photo by Donna Armstrong

The federal investigation follows officials who announced last month that Crowell & Moring, the law firm hired by GW to investigate the Title VI complaint, found many of StandWithUs’ allegations to be inaccurate and decontextualized.

The Education Department’s Civil Rights Office is launching an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism in a psychology class, just two weeks after a law firm hired by GW announced it had found no evidence of discrimination in the course.

University spokeswoman Julia Metjian said GW has a request for information from the Department of Education regarding the Title VI complaint that pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs filed with the Human Rights Office. civilians in January. The investigation follows interim university president Mark Wrighton’s announcement late last month that Crowell & Moring, the law firm hired by GW to investigate the complaint at Title VI, found that many of StandWithUs’ allegations of discrimination against some Jewish and Israeli students in the class were inaccurate. and decontextualized.

The University will fully participate in the department’s investigation, Metjian said in an email.

The Civil Rights Office did not immediately return a request for comment.

StandWithUs alleged in its January complaint that Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology, created a hostile environment for some Jewish and Israeli students in the Diversity I course of the professional psychology programs in the fall. StandWithUs also claimed that professors and administrators retaliated with disciplinary proceedings against students who complained about Sheehi.

Sheehi responded to StandWithUs’ allegations in an article for left-leaning outlet CounterPunch in February, challenging StandWithUs’ accusations raised in the Title VI complaint. She said StandWithUs used racist, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian tropes to defame her. She added that she received death threats after StandWithUs published her complaint in January.

More than 2,000 students, professors, alumni and activists, including political activist Angela Davis, signed more than half a dozen statements denouncing the StandWithUs allegations and supporting Sheehi in January and February.

Sheehi did not immediately return a request for comment.

Roz Rothstein, CEO and co-founder of StandWithUs, said in a press release Tuesday that she and other StandWithUs members are pleased with the Civil Rights Office’s decision to investigate the organization’s allegations of thorough and impartial manner.

While professors may have the right to spew erroneous and even hateful ideologies under certain circumstances, they do not have the right to subject students to discriminatory conduct based on those views, Rothstein said in the statement. University administrators have an affirmative obligation to respond appropriately when students report allegations of such misconduct.

After authorities released the Crowell & Morings investigation summary last month, Rothstein said in a statement to The Hatchet that StandWithUs wants authorities to release the full investigation report rather than a summary. She alleged that the official summary of the investigation showed a blatant whitewashing of the alleged discrimination that Jewish and Israeli students faced in Sheehis’s course.

Unsurprisingly, the published findings of that investigation were intended to exonerate GW and the professor, concluding that no anti-Semitism had occurred, the StandWithUs press release said on Tuesday.

Crowell & Moring investigators found that the remediation process officials put in place for students in the Sheehis course was not disciplinary but initiated to address a student shortcoming in a subject, according to a summary of the findings of the investigators.

Sheehi said the findings of the Crowell & Moring investigations show the dangerous ramifications of the anti-Semitism allegations that StandWithUs has made against her as an Arab woman, clinician and scholar, according to a statement from the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, an organization who decided in January to defend Sheehi. against the complaint.

I hope these findings send a clear message to anyone who feels frightened or intimidated by outside political groups whose explicit goals are to harass and silence us, Sheehi said in the statement.

This article originally appeared in the April 10, 2023 issue of The Hatchet.

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