U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Bldg. 400 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20202-1100 Email: OCR@ed.gov I. INTRODUCTION StandWithUs, an international nonprofit organization providing education about Israel and combating antisemitism, respectfully submits this letter of complaint pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq. (“Title VI”), based on antisemitic discrimination and retaliation experienced by first-year Jewish and Israeli students in the Professional Psychology Program (the “Program”) at George Washington University (“George Washington”). As described below, George Washington failed both to protect Jewish students from a hostile environment and retaliated against the students by instituting disciplinary proceedings against them after they complained to university administrators about the discrimination they faced. During the Fall 2022 semester, Jewish and Israeli students in the Program’s mandatory diversity course were singled out for repeated and persistent harassment when their Jewish and Israeli identities were disparaged by faculty and peers. 1 Jewish students at George Washington ([REDACTED], or 20 percent of the cohort) first tried to address the antisemitism they were experiencing with Dr. Lara Sheehi, who teaches the mandatory diversity course. Dr. Sheehi responded by denying that the students had experienced antisemitism, and by distorting their comments to accuse the Jewish students of attacking other identity groups. Dr. Sheehi did not treat members of any other identity group in this fashion. Only Jewish students were deprived of the opportunity to define their own identity and describe how discrimination based on that identity manifests. In a class designed to educate future therapists about different identities and sensitize the students to bias experienced by those identities, Dr. Sheehi singled out the Jewish students and deprived only them of an opportunity she afforded all other students — defining their own identity and what it means to experience discrimination based on that identity. In this way, Dr. Sheehi engaged in “erasive antisemitism,” a form of antisemitism that denies the uniqueness of Jewish identity and erases Jewish history
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Upon request, we will supply the names of the students who have requested confidentiality. StandWithUs is in direct contact with students whose experiences of antisemitism are detailed herein and can facilitate interviews between the students and the Office for Civil Rights. Israel Emergency Alliance dba. StandWithUs P.O. Box 341069 Los Angeles, CA 90034-1069 www.standwithus.com e-mail: info@standwithus.com Telephone: 310.836.6140 Fax: 310.836.6145