Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America

by Kenneth L. Marcus

What does it mean to be Jewish? This ancient question has become a pressing civil rights controversy. Despite a recent resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents on American college campuses, the U.S. Department of Education’s powerful Office for Civil Rights has been unable to protect Jewish students. This failure has been a problem not of execution but of conceptualization. The OCR has been unable to address anti-Jewish harassment because it lacks a coherent conception of either Jewish identity or anti-Jewish hatred. Given jurisdiction over race and national origin but not religion, federal agents have had to determine whether Jewish Americans constitute a race or national origin group. They have been unable to do so. This has led to enforcement paralysis, as well as explosive internal confrontations and recriminations within the federal government. This book examines the legal and policy issues behind the ambiguity involved with civil rights protections for Jewish students. Written by a former senior government official, this book reveals the extent of this problem and presents a workable legal solution.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

Kenneth L. Marcus, J.D. (University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Boalt Hall, 1991; B.A., Williams College, 1988) is senior research associate at the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, and the founder and leader of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, named for the late associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education in the Trump administration from August 6, 2018 to July 9, 2020. Previously, he served as General Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity during the Bush administration, and as Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2004–2008.

Numerous civil rights organizations, including Palestine Legal, have expressed concern that "his view of civil rights, and whose should take priority, was too narrow" and accusing him of pro-Israel bias.