CUNY’s online campus reporting system for antisemitism complaints is so outdated and riddled with confusion that it should be “completely overhauled,’’ independent state probers said Tuesday.
The University-Wide Discrimination and Retaliation Reporting Portal does not even confirm to users that their complaints have been registered, much less give any updates on their cases as things move along, said Jonathan Lippman, the highly respected, retired state chief judge who conducted the investigation for Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Lippman said the ineffective portal was among the worst problems discovered during his 10-month review of the public City University of New York’s handling of antisemitism — a confusing black hole for victims.
“What’s ridiculous is that the portal itself doesn’t acknowledge when you make a complaint and doesn’t follow up with what they did about it,” Lippman told The Post.
He expressed surprise about how ineffective the central complaint system was, describing it as good intention gone awry — but unacceptable.
“The portal is a failure,” Lippman said.
In the report, he recommended CUNY hire a consultant to redo the central investigation system.
“In my view, they have to throw this thing out and start all over. You can’t doctor it,” said Lippman, who conducted the review with associates from his law firm, Latham & Watkins LLP.
“The portal is a block box that goes nowhere fast.”
He also said the portal was unable to analyze cases to spot trends.
The defective portal that leaves complainants in the dark is one of the reasons Lippman recommended that CUNY create a separate victims’ advocate program to help people file cases and navigate the process.
CUNY, in a statement, said it’s in the process of purchasing a new case management system for the portal that will allow individuals to check on the status of their complaints and the improve the way the university tracks its complaints, as well as issue reports and notifications.
“We have also fixed the portal so that it now is able to email individuals with a confirmation of receiving the report as well as the outcome (if they give us their email, some people do not, and we accept anonymous reports),” the statement said.
“The portal was always designed to be a first step, so the community had a central place to log a report of possible discrimination or retaliation. Until the portal was launched in fall 2022, CUNY had no centralized way to gather information about discrimination claims systemwide.”
