FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23, 2025
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[email protected]
Washington, D.C. | Today, The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ) and the American‑Arab Anti‑Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed two Title VI complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights charging The New School (TNS) of systematic discrimination against Jewish antizionist students, faculty, and staff.
The filings document how TNS administrators attacked student life, punished ethnoreligious practice, and denied Jewish antizionists access to university resources while suppressing protests against the genocide in Gaza and demands for divestment from weapons manufacturers. University officials imposed their own definition of Jewish identity—one that requires allegiance to Zionism and the State of Israel—then used that definition to exclude and penalize members of the campus community who rejected it.
TNS collaborated with Hillel International, a $73 million Zionist advocacy organization whose New York City chapter reported $1.7 million in revenue last year, alone. At Hillel’s urging, TNS sanctioned Jewish antizionists who protested an on‑campus event featuring an active‑duty Israeli soldier. Administrators later solicited Hillel members to “remember” nonexistent aggressions by Jewish antizionist staff, which an independent investigation later found to be baseless.
The university also targeted joint Palestinian, Jewish, and BIPOC gatherings protesting the genocide in Gaza – often spaces of shared Jewish and Muslim prayer – thereby violating participants’ religious freedom. TNS stripped resources from the only student‑run Jewish organization because its members were antizionists and terminated a rabbinical chaplain who defended those students, falsely claiming the decision was budget‑related.
Through abusive disciplinary hearings led by a former prosecutor, TNS docked pay and retaliated against employees who reported discrimination. An outside investigator confirmed that the charges lacked merit and that TNS’s civil‑rights office had itself retaliated– punishments the university has yet to reverse. The complaints also detail a broader pattern of discrimination against BIPOC, transgender, and queer community members, using opposition to Zionism and genocide as a pretext.
ICSZ and ADC seek from The New School:
- Immediate reversal of all retaliatory sanctions, with full restoration of pay, positions, and resources to affected students, faculty, and staff.
- Public acknowledgment and apology for antisemitic, anti‑Palestinian, anti‑Black, anti‑Muslim, transphobic, and queerphobic discrimination.
- Full divestment of university endowment funds from weapons manufacturers and any enterprise profiting from genocide, apartheid, or occupation.
As Jews, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and allies, we refuse to allow our identities to be weaponized to silence opposition to genocide. It’s time to hold The New School accountable for egregious, illegal, and well-documented acts of discrimination.
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About ICSZ
Grounded in grassroots spaces and committed to working with activists, organizers, and scholars across fields including Jewish studies, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ) is a response to the urgent need to declare space, distribute resources, and galvanize the necessary dialogue and research that will become the knowledge projects of Critical Zionism Studies. The Institute challenges the frequent assumptions that the study of Zionism must necessarily be pro-Zionist, overseen by Zionist faculty, and/or only undertaken in the context of Jewish Studies or Israel Studies.
About ADC
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is the largest Arab American grassroots organization in the U.S., founded in 1980 by former Senator James Abourezk. ADC’s mission is to defend and promote the human rights, civil rights, and liberties of at least 3.7 million Arab Americans residing in the United States. Through its work, ADC fights discrimination in the U.S., enhances public understanding of Arab history and culture, and partners with marginalized communities globally to advance social justice.