In response to a federal Title VI complaint filed against Occidental College in April alleging a “hostile environment” for Jewish and Israeli students, the Los Angeles-based private liberal arts college agreed on Tuesday to implement a series of initiatives to mend the campus climate, including the adoption of the widely used International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.  

The complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) by the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on behalf of four Occidental students, stated that since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, the university enforced policies against Jewish students while ignoring antisemitic declarations and violations on campus. Examples provided in the complaint include Jewish and Israeli students being accosted and harassed by demonstrators on campus, being “unable to carry out” their jobs on campus as a result of antisemitic behavior and an allegation that that Occidental faculty “engaged in hateful rhetoric that emboldened the student protestors.”

“On the first day of class following Oct. 7, a professor told her students that she felt ‘invigorated’ from Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack and encouraged students to share their excitement,” the complaint states. “Students clapped and snapped in response to their professor while an Israeli student watched in horror.”

Under the new agreement, the college said that going into the 2025-26 school year, it will consider the IHRA working definition of antisemitism when reviewing complaints of potential antisemitic harassment or discrimination and will incorporate the definition into educational materials. Other terms in the agreement include requiring training for all students on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, appointing an associate director of Jewish student life and updating the college’s time, place and manner policies to place limitations on the hours and conduct of demonstrations on campus. 

Brandeis Center President Alyza Lewin said in a statement that the settlement “demonstrates Occidental College’s commitment to counter all forms of contemporary antisemitism.” 

In the wake of Oct. 7, Title VI complaints have surged nationally. Currently, the OCR has about 400 complaints related to discrimination based on shared ancestry or national origin, with more than 160 of those being related to antisemitism complaints, Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told lawmakers in September at a roundtable with congressional Democrats. Lhamon emphasized that many more cases go unreported. 

Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, said in a statement that the outcome at Occidental “demonstrates how the Title VI OCR process can work to effectively protect Jewish students.”