Anti-Semitism in the Redwoods

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The United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the California Globe reports, “has launched an investigation into California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt over the complaint for egregious harassment of Jewish students.” Earlier this year, the Brandeis Center investigated that northern California campus to determine compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

“We feel strongly the investigation will find that Humboldt has violated Title VI and failed to protect its Jewish students,” Brandeis Center attorney Robin Pick told the Globe. “When a university is aware that students are harassed they are required to take immediate action to eliminate the hostile atmosphere.”

At Cal Poly Humboldt, Jewish students were “pelted with fake blood, subjected to anti-Semitic slurs and forced out of parts of campus.” The administration’s response was to tell Jewish students to hide their Jewish identity. Administrators rebuffed claims from harassed Jewish students and failed to take action to support them. Campus police also failed to respond.

In the crackdown on campus anti-Semitism, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has gained key allies. Consider Harmeet Dhillon, President Trump’s choice to head the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice.

The Dartmouth College grad earned her juris doctorate at the University of Virginia, where she served on the board of the Virginia Law Review. Dhillon clerked for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U. S Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Constitutional Torts Section of the Civil Division (D.C.).  In 2020, when California Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down the state, Dhillon filed suit against his draconian stay-at-home rules.

“The governor has chosen to limit protests to zero in this state which is outrageous and absurd,” Dhillon told reporters. For small businesses there was “no appeal process, no selection criteria,” and “going to church to worship communally is a First Amendment-protected activity.”

As NBC News reported, the India-born Dhillon is “also on track to be the first Sikh American to hold the position.” An India-born nominee would be more accurately described as an Indian American, in the style of African American, Mexican American, and so forth. The media failed to describe the Trump pick as a “person of color,” a description often invoked for DEI hires. As Dhillon understands, skin shade has nothing to do with qualifications for a key Department of Justice post.

Sworn in in April, Dhillon defined her priorities as fighting racial quotas, blocking men from participating in women’s sports, and protecting Jewish students on college campuses. To serve as Dhillon’s senior counsel, Trump nominated civil rights attorney Leo Terrell, a lifelong Democrat. After the murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in Washington last month, Terrell announced plans to intensify the crackdown on campus anti-Semitism.

“We will chase after the campus inciters, and those that are here with a student visa — goodbye,” Terrell told reporters. “You are here by grace, if you create a mess, crime or discrimination against Jews, you will find yourself outside. To the universities, expect more withdrawing of federal funding, or the withholding of all federal funding. All of it!” Harvard, Columbia and the Ivy League are not the only targets.

In March Terrell announced a probe of UCLA, his alma mater, charging that the UC campus “has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an anti-Semitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses.” Last month Terrell announced plans to file a lawsuit against the 10-campus UC system.

“We have to sue them to get them to comply with fundamental rights for Jewish American students to be allowed to go to school without being harassed,” Terrell told reporters. “Jewish American students are not only being denied the right to go to school without being harassed. They are basically facing criminal attacks by individuals who are definitely anti-Semitic. Those individuals should be prosecuted.”

With that mandate, Dhillon and Terrell should take a hard look at Cal Poly Humboldt up in redwood country, where egregious harassment of Jewish students is going on. And as the pair should know, “crass left-wing anti-Semitism has clearly infected the California education system” in the Santa Clara Unified School District and Menlo-Atherton High School in the affluent Sequoia Union School District.

Last year Gov. Gavin Newson announced the “Golden State Plan to Counter Antisemitism” and  signed three bills designed to counter anti-Semitism on campus. Even so, the coiffed governor, hasn’t had much to say about harassment of Jews at UCLA, Cal Poly Humboldt State, and high schools in affluent districts.

State attorney general Rob Bonta proclaims that “anti-Semitism has no place in California.” Sounds good but the AG’s website, replete with legal actions against the Trump administration, announces no lawsuit against Cal Poly Humboldt, UCLA, or any high-school district for harassment of Jewish students.

As California Democrats look the other way, Harmeet Dhillon and Leo Terrell lead the charge against anti-Semitism in California.