Harvard University’s shield states veritas, Latin for “truth” or “verity.” Columbia University’s motto in lumine tuo videbimus lumen is a Latin translation of a verse in Psalms about seeing the light via Divine light, and the University of California, Los Angeles’s motto is “let there be light,” which it says “signifies the beginning of wisdom.”
Despite the declared dedication to the truth, all three schools recently settled cases alleging Jew-hatred on their campuses by paying out large sums of money or pledging to make major reforms. Still, all three stated in the agreements that they admit no wrongdoing when it came to protecting Jews on campus.
Late last month, UCLA settled with Jewish students for $6.45 million and committed to donating money to groups that fight Jew-hatred, including one of the school’s initiatives. “Defendants deny all liability and wrongdoing alleged in the action,” the agreement states. “The parties nevertheless desire to avoid the expense, inconvenience and risk of further litigation, and agree to settle fully and finally all claims that were or could have been asserted in the action on the terms set forth below.”
When Columbia settled days earlier and agreed to pay the federal government $221 million, it stated that “while Columbia does not admit to wrongdoing with this resolution agreement, the institution’s leaders have recognized, repeatedly, that Jewish students and faculty have experienced painful, unacceptable incidents, and that reform was and is needed.”
The $500 million settlement that Harvard is reportedly weighing with the federal government also doesn’t include taking responsibility for Jew-hatred, The New York Times reported. “They didn’t admit wrongdoing. It’s a classic settlement,” Donna Shalala, a former U.S. health secretary and University of Miami and University of Wisconsin-Madison leader, told the paper. “You don’t admit wrongdoing, and you preserve your right to continue as an institution.”
That was also the case in the settlement with Harvard and Jewish students in January. “As part of the settlement, Harvard has agreed to undertake important actions to combat antisemitism on its campus, building on measures it has implemented over the past year,” the Ivy League school stated. “As part of this settlement with Students Against Antisemitism, which includes monetary terms, Harvard has not admitted to any wrongdoing or liability.”
Robert P. George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and director of its James Madison program in American ideals and institutions, told JNS that “as a lawyer myself, I was trained to prefer a larger settlement or fine to an admission of wrongdoing whenever possible.”
The main reason is “the concern that by admitting wrongdoing, one might be exposing one’s client to other forms of legal liability,” and there can be other motivations, like minimizing damage to one’s reputation, according to George.
“I’m not surprised by this particular settlement term,” he told JNS. “It is very much to be expected.”
John Yoo, the Emanuel S. Heller professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley and a nonresident American Enterprise Institute senior fellow, told JNS that “it would make no sense for a university to settle unless they had a ‘no wrongdoing’ clause.”
“That is one of the most important elements of a settlement for a defendant and is quite common in lawsuits against corporations,” Yoo said. “But that simply means that the front against antisemitism on our campuses must move to private lawsuits.”
“While Columbia and other universities are not confessing to wrongdoing in these settlements, the government is also not finding that the universities are innocent,” he said. “Jewish students, faculty and staff can still sue and win. Witness UCLA’s agreement to pay millions to Jewish students.”
It’s normal for lawsuit settlements to come without admission of guilt, according to David Bernstein, university professor of law at George Mason University and executive director of the Liberty and Law Center at the university’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
That’s particularly true “when there is additional litigation from other parties pending or potentially so,” Bernstein told JNS, “because an admission of wrongdoing would be admissible in related litigation.”
Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy and former distinguished professor of education reform and chair of that department, which he founded, at the University of Arkansas, told JNS that the settlements are “huge wins for Jewish students.”
“Paying tens or hundreds of millions in fines and committing to changing antisemitic practices with oversight by external parties is a pretty strong acknowledgment of guilt,” Greene said. “It is not necessary or particularly helpful for them to say they are sorry, since those are just words.”
“Money and actions speak much louder,” he told JNS. “If they were to admit guilt, they would be opening themselves up to more lawsuits.”
‘Double standard’
Years ago, an academic unit at Princeton displayed the “work of a left-wing, pro-LGBT artist” in its lobby. The work, “to be blunt, defamed and degraded the Catholic Church and abused Catholic sacred objects,” George told JNS.
Catholic students asked the administration if it would show art that attacked Islam and its sacred objects. “A university official stated in a public meeting that she would not permit the displaying of anti-Islamic art despite her allowing the display of what was plainly anti-Catholic art,” George said.
“The Catholic students, and others, did not understand how she could fail to see what struck them—and me—as a glaring double standard,” he said.
The president of the Center for Jewish Life spoke at a public meeting and expressed solidarity with the Catholic students.
“He said, ‘I am here not because I fear that what is being done to the Catholics will, unless stopped, be done next to the Jews,’” George said. “‘I’m here because I know you would never do it to the Jews but feel you can freely do it to the Catholics or members of other disfavored groups and get away with it.’”
Some 20 years later, “Jewish students today are in the comparatively disfavored category with Catholics, evangelicals, conservatives and others,” George said. “They are not in the category that gets special protections, immunities or solicitude.”
Many college and university officials nationwide admit that Jew-hatred “is a reality and has become more than merely a marginal issue on their campuses,” according to George. “Such candor is very much to be encouraged.”
But the question remains, he said, how and to what extent they will address Jew-hatred.
“What many university officials refuse to admit is any wrongdoing on their own part in responding to antisemitic incidents,” including harassment and vandalism, he said.
George agrees with critics, who say that anti-Jewish offenses, including blocking Jews from entering certain parts of campus, “have not been met with the kind of forceful response that undoubtedly would have been made had those against whom the offenses were committed been, say, black or LGBT.”
“It’s not quite right to say that Jewish students are being treated differently in this matter than any other group. They are, in truth, being treated the way evangelical Christian, or Catholic or conservative students would be treated on many campuses,” he said. “But that does not mean that there is no double standard here. There surely is a double standard, and ideology and identitarianism are at the heart of the double standard.”
