Kasowitz Files Amended Lawsuit Adding New Plaintiffs and Detailing New Allegations of NYU’s Antisemitic Hostile Educational Environment and Egregious Civil Rights Violations

NEW YORK, Feb. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Kasowitz Benson Torres has filed an amended complaint against New York University (NYU) detailing new allegations concerning NYU’s egregious violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The amended complaint adds additional individual plaintiffs as well as an organizational plaintiff, Students Against Antisemitism, Inc., whose members include Jewish NYU students.

In their amended complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 31, 2024, plaintiffs allege that NYU has continued to act with deliberate indifference to a hostile antisemitic educational environment that excludes Jewish students from the protections of NYU’s codes of conduct, which NYU readily enforces for the benefit of other protected groups. As a result of NYU’s abject and ongoing failure to comply with Title VI, plaintiffs and other Jewish students are forced to run a campus gauntlet of verbal and physical harassment, threats, and intimidation, including being taunted with disgusting antisemitic slurs; having their complaints ignored, slow-walked, or met with gaslighting by the NYU administration, including NYU’s President, Linda G. Mills; and being subjected to anti-Jewish hate fests led by NYU students and faculty members extolling Hamas’s atrocities and calling for the annihilation of Israel.

The amended complaint alleges that far from taking measures to address and ameliorate the hostile environment detailed in the original complaint, NYU has continued to thumb its nose at its Title VI obligations by, among other things, permitting rampaging mobs of antisemitic students to terrorize Jewish students with chants of “go back to the gas chambers” and “go back to Poland where you came from.” The amended complaint further describes how NYU’s failure to protect Jewish students has emboldened their tormentors, who are permitted, without consequence, to denounce Jewish students as “kikes,” “white supremacists,” “fascists” and “bigots.”

Among other relief, plaintiffs are requesting that the Court order NYU to implement institutional, far-reaching, and concrete remedial measures, including by terminating NYU personnel and students responsible for such abuse.

Partner Marc E. Kasowitz said: “In response to our initial complaint, NYU has done nothing to address the anti-Jewish hatred on its campus, which has only intensified with the start of a new semester. NYU’s ongoing refusal to protect its Jewish students not only violates Title VI but is morally reprehensible.”

Partner Mark P. Ressler said: “With its continued deliberate indifference to the antisemitic mayhem on campus, NYU emboldens dangerous elements and fuels hate. The time has come for federal court intervention to do what NYU won’t do: protect its Jewish students.”

The Kasowitz Benson Torres team representing the NYU students is led by partners Marc E. Kasowitz, Daniel R. Benson, Mark P. Ressler and Andrew L. Schwartz, and includes associates Joshua E. Roberts, Andrew C. Bernstein, Jillian R. Roffer, Yarden Hodes, William Wolfe Taub and Emily A. Lowe.

Link to the complaint can be found here.

About Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP
Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP is a leading national law firm with a core focus on commercial litigation, complemented by exceptionally strong bankruptcy/restructuring, employment, and real estate practices. Kasowitz is known for its creative, aggressive litigators and willingness to take on tough cases. The firm has extensive trial experience and is always trial-ready, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in every area of litigation. Kasowitz is committed to pursuing aggressive and innovative approaches to its clients’ most challenging legal matters. Headquartered in New York City, the firm also has offices in Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. For more information, please visit www.kasowitz.com.

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SOURCE Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP