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‘Time to Speak Out’: Student Sues Rutgers University, Alleges School Punished Him for Reporting Antisemitism on Campus
Rutgers University’s college avenue campus. Photo: Tomwsulcer.
Rutgers University Law School student Yoel Ackerman has sued his school for allegedly violating Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance, claiming that he faces expulsion for reporting antisemitic harassment and intimidation.
“This lawsuit arises out of attempts by Rutgers staff members and students to punish Mr. Ackerman after he complained about the circulation of antisemitic propaganda,” New Jersey-based law firm Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, which is representing Ackerman, said in a press release issued on Tuesday. “Shockingly Rutgers Law School brought charges against Mr. Ackerman for speaking out in response to this hateful rhetoric.”
According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner, Ackerman’s troubles began after Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, when he saw on social media that a fellow Rutgers Law student had shared on Instagram a video alleging that pro-Israel advocates promoted “lies” about the terrorist attack to gain sympathy and support for committing “atrocities” against Palestinians.
Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group in control of the Gaza Strip, invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and slaughtered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, injured thousands of others, and took about 240 hostages.
Ackerman brought the issue before the Rutgers Student Bar Association (SBA), a student government body of which Ackerman was a member. However, he was accused of racism and subjected on Oct. 26 to what the lawsuit describes as a three-hour “struggle session” in which his SBA law school colleagues pelted him with insults.
“During this meeting, several students whom Mr. Ackerman had never interacted with before testified against him,” said the complaint, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Essex County. “For example, law student JM, targeted, discriminated, bullied, harassed, and retaliated against Mr. Ackerman. She falsely accused Mr. Ackerman of threatening to dox her and other students — without any evidence. JM moved to impeach Ackerman from the SBA, and to intimidate Mr. Ackerman and other Jewish students.”
“The Rutgers SBA and JM were seeking to chill the speech of Ackerman — as a Jewish person,” the complaint continues. “The content and tone of the SBA hearing were designed or allowed to air antisemitic bias with the intent of discriminating, threatening, harassing, and bullying Jewish law students, including Mr. Ackerman.”
The complaint summarizes in detail Ackerman’s attempts to file formal complaints about the video and the treatment he received, focusing on the conduct of Katherine Perez, an assistant dean in the law school whom the suit names as a defendant. It charges that Perez never watched the video about which Ackerman complained and, in retaliation, charged him with defamation and disorderly conduct. Later, Perez told Ackerman that a complaint he had filed lacked merit and would not be investigated.
Ackerman’s attorneys said in a press release that he will on Thursday attend a final disciplinary hearing that will determine whether he is expelled from school.
“In sum, Rutgers plans to hold this ‘kangaroo court’ in which they refuse to permit Ackerman to be represented by counsel (who cannot speak or otherwise advocate on Mr. Ackerman’s behalf), and have failed to advise him of the witnesses who will testify against him, and which ostensibly will be presided over by the very person who initiated and brought the charges, against him,” the suit says.
The Algemeiner has reached out to Rutgers to confirm the details concerning the hearing on Thursday.
Ackerman additionally alleges the ordeal he experienced has caused medical complications, and he is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
“It is time to speak out,” Ackerman said on Tuesday during a press conference. “Just five days after the largest attack and attempt at genocide against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, one of my peers shared a video that was highly offensive and in my opinion antisemitic … What has resulted since is nothing more than an attempt by Rutgers and other students to silence my right to speak out against antisemitism. I will not be silent in the face of hatred towards Jews.”
In a statement to The Algemeiner on Wednesday, Rutgers Law School declined to comment on “pending litigation” but said that it “takes seriously any claims of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of bias.”
“Any such claims are investigated are reviewed, and where appropriate, remedial or disciplinary actions are taken,” the statement added.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Time to Speak Out’: Student Sues Rutgers University, Alleges School Punished Him for Reporting Antisemitism on Campus first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.