A Jewish professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) who brought a discrimination case to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was vindicated in a ruling that found he and other observant Jewish colleagues were excluded from faculty meetings due to being an “observant and or Zionist Jew.”
The plaintiff, Jeffrey Lax, also alleged that he was “subjected to anti-Semitic comments despite having made ongoing complaints.”
In a statement, the EEOC said, “The commission’s investigation reveals that charging party and other similarly situated individuals were discriminated and retaliated against because of their religion; including, that respondent rejected charging party and other similarly situated individuals’ membership of the Progressive Faculty Caucus of Kingsborough Community College. In addition, witness testimony corroborates that respondent failed to take corrective action despite the numerous complaints it received in connection with religious discrimination.”
The board ruling sided with Lax’s 2019 civil rights case against CUNY and its affiliated college, Kingsborough Community College, where he works at a business professor. Lax had alleged that the Progressive Faculty Caucus had purposefully held meetings on Shabbat so that observant Jewish faculty would be unable to attend.
In June, Lax and other faculty announced they were resigning from the CUNY faculty union over a one-sided anti-Israel resolution containing an accusation of “apartheid” and calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions.