Federal Complaint Filed Against Columbia, After Trump Gives Nod to Target Political Speech on Palestine (Updated)

Update (January 3, 2020): A second complaint was reportedly filed by an individual who attended Columbia as a graduate student in the 1980s. The complainant told Haaretz that Trump's executive order had "unleashed a barrage of complaints.”

The Lawfare Project has filed a federal complaint against Columbia University for allowing Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to hold events, art installations and other speech activity advocating for Palestinian freedom, according to an announcement the Israel proxy group made on December 19.

The complaint, which invokes Donald Trump’s new executive order, argues that speech criticizing Israel’s policies violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Lawfare Project is a right-wing anti-Palestinian organization with an explicit plan to “inflict massive punishments” against critics of Israel.

“Israel proxy groups predictably fired off an egregious attack on campus free speech within a week of Trump's anti-Palestinian executive order to chill advocacy for Palestinian rights,” said senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath. “We expect Columbia to stand up to bullying attempts to censor critical discussion and scholarship and fully protect its students and professors from right-wing censorship attempts.”

The complaint -- which is not yet publicly available -- asks the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to investigate Columbia for allowing students with SJP and Columbia University Apartheid Divest to display a hand-painted wood replication of Israel’s Apartheid Wall and discuss Israel’s treatment of Palestinians during “Israel Apartheid Week.”

Trump’s executive order directs government agencies, including the Department of Education, to consider a distorted definition of antisemitism, condemned by Jewish Studies scholars because it is inaccurate and designed to censor Palestine rights activists. Israel advocates failed to pass similar legislation in Congress.

“It is clear that the executive order by Trump, a well documented anti-semite, is nothing more than a bigoted attack on pro-Palestine campus organizing. Columbia has an obligation to protect academic freedom and the free speech of anti-racist campaigners and defenders of human rights,” said Naye Idriss, a student with SJP. “We look forward to Columbia’s vigorous and trailblazing response.”

Columbia professors and students have been harassed and subjected to meritless complaints by Israel proxy groups for years. 

Lawfare Project has brought numerous failed lawsuits targeting advocacy for Palestinian rights, including a case against San Francisco State and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi. Since 2016, the Israeli government has allotted over $100 million to fight the growing movement for Palestinian rights, and at least $1 million directly from Israel to legal groups.