Reed College Settles Federal Antisemitism Complaint

Reed College has agreed to expand its campus antisemitism protections to settle a federal civil rights complaint filed on behalf of two Jewish students who left the college after reporting antisemitic attacks in May 2024.

According to one of the students, other students tore down and smashed a mezuzah—a decorative case containing parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah—affixed to her dorm room door. Early the next morning, the student was hit in the head by a rock thrown through her window, according to a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

The students were represented by the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The two groups filed the complaint in September 2024, arguing that Reed violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it “did not take steps to promptly and effectively address the harassment” after the student reported it.   

Nearly two years after the filing, the college and the advocacy groups reached a settlement through OCR-guided mediation. It follows similar settlements the ADL and Brandeis Center have reached with Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Under the terms of the latest deal, Reed College does not “admit any liability or wrongdoing” and the students have agreed to drop their claims and to take no further related legal actions against the college. 

At the same time, the college has agreed to make several changes, including:

• Instituting mandatory campuswide antisemitism training, developed in consultation with ADL and the Brandeis Center;
• Using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism to assess discriminatory intent when investigating allegations of harassment and discrimination against Jews and Israelis;

• Clarifying what constitutes prohibited discrimination or harassment on the basis of Jewish or Israeli identity, which includes targeting Jews who believe in Zionism; 
• Issuing an annual statement denouncing antisemitism for the next two years;
• Hiring a Title VI coordinator;
• Hiring an independent consultant, with input from ADL and the Brandeis Center, to evaluate Reed’s response to antisemitism complaints over the next three years. 

Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center and a former assistant secretary of the Education Department who oversaw the Office for Civil Rights between 2018 and 2020, said in a statement Wednesday that the settlement was “one of the most significant” OCR campus antisemitism settlements reached under the Trump administration and creates an “excellent precedent” for protecting Jewish students on college campuses.  

“This settlement is what accountability looks like, and it shouldn’t be the exception, it should be the standard every school holds itself to before, not after, a student gets hurt,” he said. “Reed College is now bound to real reforms that show what it looks like for a college to forcefully combat antisemitism. In particular, it is crucial that Reed’s policies now acknowledge that anti-Zionist harassment is a violation of civil rights.”