The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today welcomed the appointment of veteran law enforcement executive William J. Bratton as police commissioner of New York City.

Although we saw an overall national decline of anti-Semitic incidents last year, New York State as well as Brooklyn, saw an uptick which reminds us that we are still not immune to anti-Semitism.

Over 450 emerging leaders came together to raise over $65,000 to advance ADL’s mission to make a world without hate a reality.

“While we are strongly committed to the principles of academic freedom and free speech, we believe that official college sponsorship of a program featuring speakers who use vitriolic rhetoric to condemn Israel and who do not recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist is beyond the pale,” said Evan R. Bernstein, ADL New York Regional Director.

The allegations contained in a lawsuit, filed in late 2012 by a national public interest law firm, Public Justice, assert that several Jewish students in the district suffered egregious anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment and bullying at the hands of a number of other students and were unable to get school officials to take appropriate action to protect them.