BERKELEY, California (Press Release) – StandWithUs Saidoff Legal and a Jewish undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley filed on Tuesday, March 18, a federal Title VI civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), with notice to the Department of Justice.
The complaint alleges that masked pro-Hamas aggressors assaulted an identifiably Jewish student during a pro-Hamas protest on campus on October 16, 2023, and that a year later, the same student faced another antisemitic attack, this time at a protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine.
In both incidents, the student reported the assaults to the campus police, and both times the police refused to investigate or even confront the perpetrators, even though officers were in the vicinity of both incidents and the victim immediately pointed out the perpetrators to them. As a result of this deliberate inaction, the assailants in both incidents remain unidentified, preventing the student from holding them accountable either criminally or civilly.
Yael Lerman, Director of StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, said, “The same Jewish student was assaulted twice on UC Berkeley’s campus in one year, and both times, the administration and campus police refused to act. UC Berkeley is not just ignoring antisemitic violence—it is enabling it. UC Berkeley campus police appear to be allowing antisemitic assaults, discrimination and harassment of Jewish students out of fear of upsetting, pro-Hamas activists.”
Additionally, the complaint points to Executive Order 14188, issued on January 25, 2025, which specifically identifies acts such as denial of access to campus areas, intimidation, and physical assault as examples of antisemitic discrimination requiring immediate intervention.
The full Title VI complaint is available HERE.
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