CUNY Antisemitism Needs Action ‘Right Away,’ Latham Lawyer Says

City University of New York must revamp its hate speech policies, Latham & Watkins said in a report responding to antisemitism and discrimination on campuses.

The report commissioned by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul after a surge of antisemitic hate made 13 recommendations for university officials, including that they update a complaint system and create a victim’s advocate program.

University officials “need to overhaul significantly the policies and procedures related to antisemitism and hate,” the report’s lead author, Latham attorney Jonathan Lippman, said in an interview. “They have to do it right away.”

US universities and colleges have struggled to control a wave of pro-Palestine encampments and other on-campus demonstrations tied to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s response in Gaza and other areas.

Hochul in October 2023 asked Latham to assemble the report released on Tuesday. The firm is handling a similar investigation at New York University’s law school that includes a student who filed a harassment claim.

Lippman’s report examined over a dozen schools and colleges at CUNY, including its School of Law. It’s “one of the schools where anecdotally and in the press, we’ve seen incident after incident,” he said.

“Many consider the CUNY School of Law to be the most ethnically and racially diverse law school in the United States,” wrote Lippman, the former chief judge of New York and of the New York Court of Appeals, in the report. “While I applaud this diversity, CUNY must recognize that at some schools, this diversity has not translated into an environment of tolerance and respect.”

Latham’s team of over 60 attorneys included antitrust litigation partner Lawrence Buterman, Lippman said. The firm’s work on the report was pro bono.

Lippman previously authored a 2017 report examining Rikers Island, which pushed for the closure of the jail. The commission behind the Rikers report also worked with Latham.

Latham isn’t the only Big Law firm that has been tapped to investigate university responses to pro-Palestine activism and antisemitism. Columbia University hired lawyers from Debevoise & Plimpton to investigate student misconduct complaints from the protests.