Their reasons for opposing the decorated attorney’s appointment to Virginia’s largest public university remain unknown, as no arguments enumerating concerns about Marcus’ beliefs, conduct, or political affiliations have been put forth.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Democrats in Virginia have launched an effort to block several appointees of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, including a Jewish civil rights attorney who was picked for an important post at George Mason University (GMU) that would see him continue reforming the school’s handling of antisemitism.

In the summer of 2024, Youngkin selected Kenneth Marcus — chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, former assistant US secretary of education for civil rights, and one the most consequential litigants in the fight to eradicate campus antisemitism — to serve on GMU’s Board of Visitors, a role in which he has addressed longstanding issues affecting Jewish GMU students, including recent threats to their safety that were widely reported in the media.

However, Marcus’ appointment came while Virginia’s General Assembly, a bicameral legislature which has the final say on gubernatorial appointees, was in recess.

While he served in the unpaid role, it was never confirmed by lawmakers.

That left the door open for his appointment to be rejected, the first steps towards which took place earlier this week when Senate Democratic members of the privileges and elections committee, a body which oversees appointments and submits them to the General Assembly for a final vote, removed his name from a joint resolution containing the names of appointees whose confirmation is pending.

Their reasons for opposing the decorated attorney’s appointment to Virginia’s largest public university remain unknown, as no arguments enumerating concerns about Marcus’ beliefs, conduct, or political affiliations have been put forth.

The Democrats’ opposition to his appointment came as a surprise, Marcus, a native of northern Virginia, told The Algemeiner on Thursday during an interview.

“No one in the Virginia Senate reached out to me to express any concerns, so I don’t know what the issue is. There is nothing that I have done during my tenure at George Mason that has been particularly controversial other than that I have been both active and outspoken in addressing antisemitism,” Marcus explained.

“It would be disturbing if my work on antisemitism has been controversial with the General Assembly because the actions that we’ve been taking have been both legally required and necessary.”

He continued, “What’s happening at George Mason is deeply concerning, and there has absolutely been a need to take serious action. That work has been important, but it is also ongoing and is by no means done. Much, much more needs to be done.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, George Mason University has been the center of two investigations involving the potential for mass casualty events motivated by antisemitism.

In December, a GMU student was permanently trespassed and arrested in Falls Church, Virginia for allegedly planning to manufacture a weapon of mass destruction for use in a jihadist attack on Israel’s General Consulate in New York City.

FBI agents apprehended the student, GMU freshman and Egyptian expatriate Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, after he had allegedly discussed his plot, in which he considered a variety of options for creating as many Jewish casualties as possible, with an undercover informant.

Hassan’s case was the second time in less than a month that GMU students were arrested due to suspicion that they were preparing to commit a mass casualty event.

Earlier that month, the university criminally trespassed and suspended two siblings — the current co-president and former president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — after a law enforcement search of their off-campus home uncovered “four weapons unsecured, along with more than 20 magazines with 30 bullets each,” Hamas paraphernalia, and “arm patches” which said “kill them where they stand” — a phrase others have translated as “kill Jews where they stand.”

Additionally, George Mason University is currently under investigation for a series of antisemitic incidents which took place on campus after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

In one widely reported outrage, a pro-Hamas student stormed through the campus tearing down posters of missing Israeli hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas.

That student was filmed, and when an attempt was made to expose their identity, the university accused the student who captured the hateful behavior of doxxing and suggested that he could be punished.

At the time, many Jewish students said that the idea that the university would discipline anyone for unmasking antisemites is startling and disreputable.

Given the immensity of the issues that remain to be addressed, Marcus hopes that “cooler heads will prevail” in the General Assembly. He recognizes, however, that they may not.

“I have to think that cooler heads will prevail and that the General Assembly assembly will change course, but I don’t know that,” he said.

“There’s still time and I know that many people are having conversations and that’s a healthy part of the process. I am a volunteer part-time public servant asking questions and trying to make sure that George Mason students are well educated and kept safe. If my name is not restored presumably that means that my tenure would end and I would not receive answers to the questions I’ve been asking and would no longer have an opportunity to work to protect George Mason University and its students.”

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“We care about transgenders, we care about blacks, we care about Hispanics, we care about gays, we care about lesbians, we care about the disabled. We don’t care about anti-Semitism in this office,” Jake Cornett, a senior policy adviser, reportedly said.

By: JNS.org

A U.S. Senate staffer allegedly suggested that anti-Semitism is of lesser concern than discrimination against other minority groups, stating twice that “we don’t care about anti-Semitism in this office,” JNS has learned. The revelation has sparked concern among groups that work to raise American lawmakers’ awareness about anti-Semitism.

The remarks were purportedly made in a conversation that took place between Sarah Stern, the president of the pro-Israel group Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), and Jake Cornett, a senior policy adviser to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (known as HELP).

Stern’s organization has been urging senators to support the nomination of Kenneth L. Marcus as assistant secretary of education for civil rights. Marcus’s confirmation hearing took place last month, and a vote on the nomination will be held in the coming days.

In the meeting with Cornett, at Murray’s office on Nov. 28, 2017, Stern spoke of Marcus’s work against anti-Semitism as one of the reasons that senators should support the nomination.

According to notes of the meeting that were taken at the time by Stern’s associate, Jennifer Dekel, Cornett responded, “We don’t care about anti-Semitism in this office. We care about transgenders, we care about blacks, we care about Hispanics, we care about gays, we care about lesbians, we care about the disabled. We don’t care about anti-Semitism in this office.”

‘Nothing could be further from the truth’

A spokesperson for Murray said in a statement to JNS, “In no way could a quote like this reflect the position of the HELP Committee Democrats or the office of the Ranking Member—and in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The office takes anti-Semitism in all its forms extremely seriously and is absolutely committed to fighting back against it however it can, wherever it exists.”

The statement continued, “The staffer in the meeting absolutely denies the quote attributed to him and regrets that what he did say in the meeting two months ago could have been misunderstood and misconstrued so badly. He does not believe, and in no way intended to convey, that the office considers fighting anti-Semitism to be anything less than a critical issue and an important part of the position that Mr. Marcus has been nominated for.”

On Wednesday, a member of the senator’s staff “had a productive conversation to clarify what [Stern] took from the meeting and to make sure she understands the office’s clear position on this issue,” according to the spokesperson.

Stern, in response, told JNS, “I cannot believe that Senator Murray herself thinks anti-Semitism is not a genuine problem, or that Jewish concerns are somehow not as important as those of other groups. I am sure she will make it clear to her staff that such attitudes are unacceptable.”

Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, who has worked with Stern in Washington in his capacity as executive director of the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East nonprofit, described her as “a credible, honest professional who has worked on Capitol Hill for many years on issues of concern to the Jewish community.” Romirowsky told JNS that Stern “has always acted with the utmost integrity.”

Whistleblower an ’eminently reliable person’

“Sarah Stern is an eminently reliable person,” said Charles Jacobs, president of the Boston-based advocacy organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance. “And anti-Semitism is a serious and growing problem, especially on college campuses where Jewish students are not typically granted the same protections by college administrations as are other minority groups.”

The Marcus nomination has been supported by major Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith. It is opposed by pro-Palestinian organizations, including the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Writing in the political affairs journal The Nation on Jan. 10, Dima Khalidi, leader of the organization “Palestine Legal,” accused Marcus of “targeting the First Amendment rights of students who are critical of Israeli policies and advocate for Palestinian rights.”

In response, supporters of Marcus point out that he and the organization he founded, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, pressed San Diego State University (SDSU) for action when a Muslim student was attacked there several years ago.

“While our organization primarily addresses the rights of Jewish college students, we support the right of all students to be free from invidious discrimination,” Marcus wrote to the SDSU administration at the time, urging the university to “hold educational forums to discuss the serious nature of this incident and what can be done to eliminate further hate crimes against students of any identity group.”

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