The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a private school in New York City that is one of the highest-ranked in the nation for arts and engineering, settled a lawsuit, which the Lawfare Project brought on behalf of 10 Jewish students who alleged antisemitic harassment and intimidation on campus after Oct. 7, 2023.
The suit centered on an incident in which Jewish students were trapped inside the library of the more than 165-year-old school, which used to be free and more recently charges tuition.
Steven McLaughlin, Cooper Union president since July, told JNS that the school agreed to a package of reforms focused on Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, including recognizing Zionism as a protected aspect of Jewish identity under the school’s nondiscrimination policies and strengthening oversight on Jew-hatred.
“Today’s settlement reflects our ongoing commitment to maintaining a campus where every student in our community feels respected, safe and included,” he told JNS on Thursday.
“We are dedicated to continuing our efforts to confront discrimination of any kind, including antisemitism, and to fostering a productive culture of curiosity and compassion,” McLaughlin said.
Under the settlement, Cooper Union agrees to appoint a dedicated Title VI coordinator to oversee the school’s compliance with the 1964 law and to address complaints involving Jew-hatred and anti-Zionist discrimination or harassment.
The school is to pay an unspecified amount of compensation. (JNS asked Lawfare Project, which filed the suit on behalf of the Jewish students, how much money Cooper Union agreed to pay.)
The agreement also requires Cooper Union to apply guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, including considering the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred and its appended contemporary examples when it responds to complaints.
The university also commits to banning masks or face coverings intended to conceal identities during protests and requires participants to present a valid Cooper Union identification upon request.
The settlement agreement is the result of a longstanding dialogue between the university and the Jewish students, who brought the claims, according to McLaughlin.
“This institution was founded on a bedrock commitment to mutual respect, integrity and diversity,” he told JNS. “We remain dedicated to those tenets and value, encourage and promote the importance of being open to one another’s perspectives.”
“Settling this litigation is an important step as we move forward,” he said. “The Cooper Union strives to cultivate a campus community where free expression and academic freedom are core values, and all students feel respected and welcome.”
‘You cannot target Zionists’
Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at Lawfare Project, told JNS that Cooper Union’s agreement to recognize formally that many Jewish community members consider Zionism a core part of their Jewish identity is an important step that would trigger Title VI protections against discrimination on that basis.
“You can say offensive things about Zionism because we don’t stop speech, but you cannot target Zionists, you cannot discriminate against Zionists and you cannot harass Zionists,” she told JNS.
“If a student is standing in a corner carrying out their First Amendment speech rights through protest and saying all kinds of offensive things about Zionism, that is their right,” Reich said. “But if you see a Jewish person walking by that you know identifies with Zionism, and then you say, ‘How many children have you killed today,’ you’re targeting a Zionist person, and you would be considered to be violating the Title VI anti-discrimination code of Cooper Union.”
Unlike the statewide Title VI coordinator framework implemented under New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Cooper Union’s agreement specifically requires its coordinator to address Jew-hatred and anti-Zionist discrimination under Title VI and to apply federal guidance, including the IHRA definition, when evaluating complaints, according to Reich.
“I think it’s particularly poignant that Cooper Union has agreed to this at this time when the Jewish community is really hurting as a result of Mamdani removing the executive orders that require the use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” she said. (Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York City.)
Reich said that the school’s ban on masks to hide protesters’ identities is a positive development.
“Students have been able to terrorize Jewish students anonymously, and they can no longer do that,” she told JNS. “They would show up to protests, and they would harass and target Jewish students, and they could get away with it because nobody knew who they were.”
Despite the settlement and protections it secured for Cooper Union students, the broader rise in campus Jew-hatred remains a serious concern to Reich.
“When I consider the level of antisemitism on college campuses, I think the situation is grim for Jewish students,” she said. “I don’t have a positive outlook yet. We have thousands of campuses across the country where lawsuits have not been brought, and antisemitism and discrimination are continuing to run rampant.”
Reich said that the Israel-Hamas war has ended, but “the unbridled hatred toward Israel has not diminished.”
“It has only escalated and gotten worse as time goes on,” she said. “I’m not feeling very hopeful about the state of universities at large in the United States, and I do hope that something is done on a legislative level that appropriately deals with the problem.”
“I don’t think these lawsuits are the end-all and be-all,” she added. “However, at least with Cooper Union, the incoming class of fall 2026 is going to have a very different experience than the students who were part of this lawsuit.”
