03/12/2025
Federation's CRC Annual Meeting to Discuss Campus Climate, Government’s Response March 20
ABIGAIL PREISZIG
Article reprinted with permission from Cleveland Jewish News
Marcus
The 78th Annual Meeting of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s community relations committee and Sidney Z. Vincent Memorial Lecture on March 20 is titled, “The Campus Climate and the Washington Response: What Jewish Students Face on College Campuses and How the Government is Responding.”
“Since Oct. 7 there has been an alarming amount of antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric worldwide and we feel that the students on college campuses are facing unprecedented challenges including harassment, bullying and even physical violence and we want to make sure that they have a platform to share and be heard,” Anna Novik, event co-chair, told the Cleveland Jewish News.
Featured speaker Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, will discuss trends seen at colleges and universities since the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel by Hamas and responses from Washington, D.C., at 5:30 p.m. at Green Road Synagogue at 2437 S. Green Road in Beachwood.
Marcus will focus on the transition in government, Title VI investigations, congressional action, violations and lawsuits and the work of The Louis D. Brandeis Center, an independent, unaffiliated, nonprofit corporation established to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all in Washington, D.C.
“We thought that it was very relevant to have him speak about what he is doing, what his organization is doing on a national level and speaking to the government on behalf of what is happening in the country with antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric right now,” Novik, a congregant of B’nai Jeshurun Congregation in Pepper Pike, said.
Additionally, a panel of university representatives will share their respective experiences on campus, including Sarah Deitsch, program director at Schottenstein Chabad House at The Ohio State University in Columbus; Maira Ligo-Pineda, a senior at Kent State University and student board president of Hillel at Kent State University; and Rabbi Davey Rosen, CEO of Michigan Hillel in Ann Arbor.
“They all face very different experiences on the different campuses, and we wanted them to share their personal insight on what these campuses are currently facing and have an open and honest conversation with Kenneth Marcus,” Novik, a Mayfield Heights resident, said. “Just have their voices heard.”
Sue Borison, chair of the community relations committee, will also share what the committee’s accomplishments, priorities and plans for the next year, she said.
Novik encouraged people to register “so that this information gets out to the community.” The event is free and open to the public.
Marcus is a professorial lecturer in law at The George Washington University in Washington and author of “The Definition of Anti-Semitism,” “Jewish Identity” and “Civil Rights in America.” He served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights, staff director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity and he formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College School of Public Affairs and served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University in New York.
For more information and to register, visit bit.ly/3QSithH.
