NYU President Linda Mills announced the overdue appointment of the university’s Title VI coordinator on Monday amid the Trump administration’s recent crackdown on Columbia University.
David Krieger, who just wrapped up 13 years as a senior attorney for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, will oversee complaints relating to discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity or religious affiliation. NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement to WSN that Krieger was selected “weeks ago,” and that Monday was his first day working at the university. The role was initially slated for appointment by the end of 2024.
During his time at the Department of Education, Krieger drafted letters to NYU leadership accusing the university of cultivating a “hostile environment” for Jewish students in 2020. NYU announced the creation of the Title VI coordinator position last July as part of a confidential settlement with three Jewish students, who accused the university of an alleged indifference toward incidents of antisemitism on campus.
In September 2020, Krieger was included as a point of contact in an Office for Civil Rights letter to former NYU President Andrew Hamilton. The letter referenced a complaint filed by a student at the university, arguing that it had discriminated against Jewish students. As a result, NYU reached a settlement with the Department of Education in which the university agreed to include discrimination “based on shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics,” such as incidents of antisemitism, in its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harrassment policies.
Krieger has also been featured on several panels sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, a group that has urged NYU to strengthen its approach to suppressing pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. In October 2024, the ADL commended the university for “the actions and policies implemented” by senior leadership “to combat antisemitism on campus.”
At an ADL-sponsored panel in December, Krieger said his work at the Office for Civil Rights entailed overseeing civil rights complaints made against higher education institutions. If a complaint is “deemed viable,” he said that the office would work to withdraw federal funding from the respective institution.
Krieger was also listed as a point of contact in a letter to Hamilton April 2020 referencing a complaint filed by a student alleginging sexual harassment within the College of Dentistry. In 2021, Krieger was listed in another letter to Hamilton that referenced a student complaint accusing NYU of disability discrimination by imposing a housing surcharge on single dorms and dorms with kitchens, air conditioning and other amenities provided to accommodate the student’s disability.
“I very much look forward to serving as NYU’s Title VI coordinator,” Krieger said in an email to WSN.
NYU is one of 10 universities to be investigated by the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which President Donald Trump formed last month to enforce his crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations and threats to deport “foreign students and faculty who support Hamas” amid Israel’s war in Gaza. Since Friday, Columbia — another college targeted by the task force — has seen $400 million in cuts to research funding, and a graduate involved in organizing on-campus protests is currently detained by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement despite having a green card.
During Trump’s first term, he issued an executive order mandating that all universities implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which includes “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” NYU adopted the IHRA definition following the 2020 lawsuit, and recently updated its student conduct guidelines to include “code words, like ‘Zionist,’” as examples of potentially discriminatory speech. Students and faculty have criticized the guidelines, arguing that they conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism at the expense of academic freedom.
In its initial statement announcing the position, NYU said it was designed to parallel the role of the Title IX coordinator, who oversees complaints relating to discrimination on the basis of gender. In her universitywide email announcing Krieger’s hire, Mills said he will be “meeting with the community” over the course of his first few months, and that students interested in receiving support can reach out to the Office of Equal Opportunity.
“We remain steadfast in our attentiveness to educating our community about what constitutes discrimination and harassment,” Mills said in her announcement. “David, working alongside NYU students, faculty and staff, will help us accomplish this critical goal as a means to ensure our community remains free from hate in any of its forms.”
Update, March 11: This article was updated with a statement from a university spokesperson.
Contact Dharma Niles and Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
