Brooklyn College hit with federal probe over allegedly labeling Jewish students as White oppressors

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at Brooklyn College stemming from claims that Jewish students were smeared by professors and peers as White, privileged oppressors.

The Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law said Thursday that the federal probe was opened on behalf of students in the mental health counseling master’s program after the center filed a Jan. 28 complaint listing incidents of harassment.

“Fighting bigotry should not be a competition between minority groups; it’s not a zero sum game,” said Denise Katz-Prober, the center’s director of legal initiatives. “Yet, once again, in a university program for mental health professionals, Jews are told they must identify as white, are called privileged, and are accused of being oppressors. This runs completely counter to Jewish history.”

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed Thursday that an investigation had been opened, while Brooklyn College said it was “committed to working cooperatively and fully with the U.S. Department of Education.”

“Brooklyn College unequivocally denounces antisemitism in any form and does not tolerate it on its campus,” said the New York City college’s statement on Thursday.

The probe comes amid rising challenges to educational and workplace training materials steeped in critical race theory concepts such as “Whiteness” that critics argue violate the civil rights of students, employees and others.

The issue of Jews and race was on display earlier this week when Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” was suspended for saying on the air that the Holocaust “was not about race” but about “man’s inhumanity to man.”

The Brandeis complaint said that during the 2020-21 academic year, a professor told the class that Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to America were among the oppressors of racial minorities.

Another professor told students to rank their “identities,” after which the class admonished a student for listing “Jewish” first and “White” last.

“The students insisted that because [the Jewish student] was white and part of the dominant culture, [the student] did not understand oppression and therefore incorrectly ranked [his/her] identities,” said the redacted complaint.

The Jewish students also were harassed in a WhatsApp group chat, including being accused of racism and “part of the dominant culture,” the complaint said.

In another incident, students were asked to fill out a worksheet based on their racial identity, but there was no category for being Jewish. A Jewish student who objected to filling out the “White Racial Identity Development” sheet and being guilty of “White privilege” was accused of being “in denial.”

A student who complained to the administration was told in effect to “keep your head down,” the complaint said.

“For example, when one of the Jewish students tried to explain to an administrator that Jews should not have to identify as white, the administrator told the student that was a foregone conclusion,” said the center. “When another Jewish student explained they are in fact a Hispanic person of color, an administrator implied being Jewish automatically supersedes Latin descent and makes one white and privileged.”

In its statement, Brooklyn College said that it “appreciates the important role Jewish Americans have played in the rich history of the country, the city, and the campus,” and cited its “We Stand Against Hate Initiative,” which “also serves as a platform to denounce antisemitism.”

The complaint said the college had created a “hostile climate” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“By advancing the racist and ethnic stereotype that all Jews are ’white’ and ’privileged’ and therefore oppress people of color, faculty members, students and course assignments in the MHC program thereby invoke the classical anti-Semitic trope that Jews possess disproportionate power and influence in society, which they use for nefarious purposes against non-Jews, while also subjecting them to racial stereotypes about ’whites,’” said the center.