Reed College agreed to require antisemitism training, ban faculty from canceling classes or offering incentives for students to attend protests, and make other changes to settle accusations that it failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment. The harassment included, in May 2024, the destruction of a mezuzah belonging to a female student, who also was struck in the head by a rock thrown through her dorm-room window while she was sleeping.
The settlement by the prestigious liberal-arts college in Portland, Oregon, was announced Wednesday and resolved two federal Title VI complaints filed against Reed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Title VI, part of the Civil Rights Act, prohibits discrimination by recipients of federal financial aid. The Brandeis Center and ADL said that the comprehensive reforms promised by Reed amount to a national model for responding to antisemitism on college campuses, which surged after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
On November 9, 2023, protesters on the Reed campus marched behind a banner that said “INTIFADA EVERYWHERE” and chanted an anti-Israel slogan. The protest was led by Reed’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and occurred on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom against Jews by the Nazi regime. The SJP chapter claimed that it did not schedule the protest to coincide with the anniversary, according to The Reed College Quest, Reed’s student newspaper. Four students were arrested after the protest spread to downtown Portland.
