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FIRST ON FOX: A Jewish scholar who alleged she was pressured out of her graduate program partially due to her Shabbos observance has settled her spiritual discrimination lawsuit in opposition to Columbia University.
The phrases of the settlement in the lawsuit filed by The Lawfare Undertaking and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP have been confidential, however Lawfare Undertaking govt Ziporah Reich mentioned it included monetary compensation and different reduction.
“These outcomes replicate the facility of authorized motion to result in significant change, we’re proud to face behind a brave scholar who selected to face up for her rights,” Lawfare Undertaking Director Brooke Goldstein advised Fox Information Digital in an announcement.
A Columbia spokesperson confirmed the settlement, saying, “Now we have reached a mutually agreeable confidential settlement with Forrest that didn’t embody any admission of legal responsibility.”
Columbia College settled a lawsuit with an Orthodox Jewish scholar who was alleging spiritual discrimination. (Getty Photos)
Mackenzie Forrest, an Orthodox Jewish scholar from Florida, claimed she was pressured out of the Dialectical Behavioral Remedy (DBT) program on the Columbia Faculty of Social Work (CSSW), after she requested that she be allowed to attend courses remotely out of concern for her security amid widespread antisemitic campus unrest following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist assaults.
Forrest alleged that she attended the Columbia Faculty of Social Work particularly due to her curiosity within the DBT program. Nevertheless, when she knowledgeable this system’s director, Andre Ivanoff, Ph.D., that she wouldn’t have the ability to interact in classroom actions that fall on the Jewish Sabbath shortly after she was accepted in Spring 2023, Ivanoff allegedly replied that that may be a “drawback,” court docket paperwork say.
The scholar alleged Columbia retaliated in opposition to her after she requested distant courses out of concern for her security. (Sam Nahins)
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The Jewish graduate scholar acquired additional pushback concerning her spiritual practices when she knowledgeable Ivanoff that she could be unable to attend a weekend-long workshop on suicide danger evaluation as a result of it fell on Shabbos, often known as the Sabbath.
Regardless of Forrest saying that she might attend the components of the workshop that didn’t happen between Friday evening to Saturday evening, Ivanoff allegedly advised her she would want a “dispensation” from her rabbi to attend the workshop. Ultimately, Ivanoff determined he would assign her substitute coursework in lieu of the workshop when Forrest knowledgeable him he couldn’t attend.
Following the Oct. 7 assaults in 2023, Columbia’s campus exploded right into a hotbed of antisemitism. In gentle of what the plaintiff claimed was widespread verbal abuse and a bodily assault of a pro-Israel scholar who was allegedly crushed with what seemed to be a brush, Forrest requested that she be allowed to attend class remotely out of concern for her security.
The settlement included monetary compensation and different types of reduction.
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Not solely was the grad scholar’s request denied, however quickly after she claimed she confronted retaliation from the university. Regardless of being a straight-A scholar, Forrest was advised she was susceptible to failing the field-based internship portion of her curriculum, in line with the declare. The Jewish scholar alleged that she had by no means beforehand been advised she was under-performing by her tutorial advisor, whom she met with recurrently.
