The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint accusing Columbia of discriminating against a Jewish student, a DOE spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/10/04/office-civil-rights-launches-investigation-following-steering-complaint

Ken Marcus reports [ 6 Oct]: As you might have seen, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has agreed to investigate our Columbia Title VI complaint. This is very good news. The gist of our claim is that Barnard is unlawfully “steering” Jewish students away from courses taught by controversial anti-Zionist Professor Joseph Massad because they might be “uncomfortable” there — rather than addressing the problems that would make them uncomfortable. We argue that the steering per se is unlawful, but what OCR really needs to do is to address the underlying problem. Here are some links to the first spate of articles covering this story, starting with one of my own.

http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=52854&pageid=16&pagename=Opinion
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/79887/new-charge-over-hostile-columbia-classroom/
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/10/05/3089705/feds-launch-jewish-discrimination-investigation-against-columbia-university
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/10/04/office-civil-rights-launches-investigation-following-steering-complaint

[7 October] http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/10/06/3089743/swedish-academics-call-for-boycott-of-israel-institutions