The U.S. Department of Justice said last week that it is investigating alleged discrimination against Jewish students at Lincoln Memorial University, a private school in Harrogate, Tenn.
Conducted with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the inquiry comes amid concerns that the school’s DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine is purposefully stopping Jewish students from completing their spring semester exams, the federal government said.
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to shutting down the concerning outbreak of antisemitism that has been spreading on college campuses since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, stated.
“When colleges and universities single Jewish students out for adverse treatment, they are in clear violation of our civil-rights laws and of this nation’s promise of equal opportunity for all Americans,” she said.
The university ranks highly for social mobility. It has campuses in Knoxville, Harrogate and Orange Park.
Knoxville’s WBIR-TV reported that the federal government probe centers on at least two Orthodox Jewish medical doctoral students, who enrolled under terms in the student handbook that provide exemptions for attendance and exams on religious holidays. The handbook doesn’t specify which religion, per the station.
Rabbi Yossi Wilhelm, of Chabad of Knoxville, told WBIR that the exemption was lifted during winter break, and the school issued new guidance in the student handbook that religious holidays would no longer be grounds for missing class or tests.
The new policy poses problems for Jewish students this year, since Passover and Shavuot fall on five school days this spring, the rabbi told the station.
WIBR compared the doctoral student handbooks from the fall and spring to verify the change.
“The dean that I spoke to is like, ‘How are they going to be doctors?’ And I was like, ‘There are thousands, I mean thousands of Jewish Orthodox doctors throughout the United States, Israel and probably in many other countries,” Wilhelm told the channel. “‘They seem to be doing it just fine.’”
“When it’s a life and death situation, the Torah says that life comes first. So the Sabbath can be desecrated if it’s to save a person’s life. Yom Kippur can be desecrated, which is the holiest day of the year, can be desecrated to save the life of a person,” he sid he told the dean.
“Lincoln Memorial University firmly upholds the protections established by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” the school stated. “We take seriously our responsibility to ensure equal access and non-discrimination in our educational settings.”
