The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation of Tulane University over a violent incident near campus during a protest related to the Israel-Hamas war.
The New Orleans university was added Tuesday to the federal agency's growing list of elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools facing inquiries into alleged religious or ethnic discrimination.
The investigation centers on a rally held on Freret Street on Oct. 26, where a fight broke out between supporters of Palestine and Israel, leading to a handful of arrests, Tulane spokesperson Michael Strecker said.
It's not clear whether a specific complaint prompted the inquiry or who might have filed one. The complaint and the allegations that prompted the investigation were not made public.
Students, officer assaulted
Strecker said Tulane did not sanction the rally. Freret, a public street, bisects the school's Uptown campus.
"The rally was deliberately staged on public property contiguous to our campus but over which we have no control," Strecker said. "As a result of assaults against Tulane students and a Tulane police officer at the rally, three individuals unaffiliated with the university were arrested on a variety of charges, including hate crimes."
Tulane officials increased security on campus and training on antisemitism after the violence, Strecker said.
"We will fully comply with the [Office for Civil Rights'] investigation and look forward to sharing with them the facts of this incident and our continued effort to support a learning environment that is free of harassment and discrimination based on shared ancestry or national origin," he said.
Civil rights at issue
The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights released its list of active Title VI shared ancestry investigations in November, as part of an effort to address what it called an "alarming nationwide rise" in reports of antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and other forms of discrimination and harassment since the Israel-Hamas conflict ignited Oct. 7. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin, including harassment based on a person’s shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.
Schools on the list are under investigation for alleged violations of that act. A spokesperson for the Department of Education said its Office of Civil Rights can't comment further on active investigations.
The fight at the Tulane rally started when someone tried to set fire to an Israeli flag, said Summer Swenson, a Tulane sophomore who witnessed the altercation.
"Then, more people started coming up and there were a lot of punches," she said. "There was a brawl in the middle."