Why I Stood Up for Jewish Civil Rights at Columbia — And What It Taught Me About Honesty

People sometimes ask me how a dentist ended up selling burial insurance. The short answer is: life does not move in a straight line. The longer answer involves Georgetown, NYU dental school, a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia, a Masters of Public Health program, a federal civil rights lawsuit, and a hard-won understanding that honesty is the only thing worth building a career on.

This is that story.

The Path to Columbia

I grew up with a deep respect for education. I went to Georgetown University for my undergraduate degree, then earned my Doctor of Dental Surgery from NYU. After dental school, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center. Dentistry was good to me. I treated patients, I ran a practice, I paid my loans. But I always felt pulled toward something broader. Public health had been in the back of my mind for years. How do communities stay healthy? How do systems fail the people they are supposed to serve? What role does access play in outcomes?

In the fall of 2023, I enrolled in the Masters of Public Health program at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. I was excited. Columbia is one of the most respected institutions in the world, and the Mailman School is consistently ranked among the best public health programs in the country. I was ready to learn, contribute, and grow.

What I was not ready for was what I encountered on campus.

What Happened at Columbia

In October 2023, following the events in the Middle East, the atmosphere at Columbia shifted dramatically. For Jewish students, it became hostile. I want to be careful with my words here, because this is a subject that deserves precision, not hyperbole. I am not going to editorialize about geopolitics. What I will say is what I witnessed firsthand: Jewish students at Columbia were subjected to harassment, intimidation, and an environment that made it difficult to learn, participate, and simply exist on campus as Jewish people.

There were incidents that I experienced personally. There were incidents that my classmates experienced. And there was an institutional response that, at least initially, felt inadequate to the severity of what was happening. When you are paying tuition to attend a graduate program and you cannot walk across campus without being targeted for your identity, something is fundamentally broken.

I am Jewish. I am proud of that. And I was not willing to be silent about what was happening around me.

The Decision to Join the Lawsuit

In February 2024, the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres filed a federal lawsuit against The Trustees of Columbia University in the Southern District of New York. The case was filed as Kasowitz Benson Torres v. The Trustees of Columbia University, Case 1:24-cv-01306-VSB-SN. An amended complaint was filed in June 2024. More than 45 students were named as plaintiffs. I was one of them.

The lawsuit alleged that Columbia had permitted and failed to address an antisemitic hostile educational environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. These are not obscure legal theories. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal financial assistance. The Ku Klux Klan Act provides a civil remedy for conspiracies to deprive people of their civil rights. These are foundational pieces of American civil rights law, and they applied directly to what was happening at Columbia.

Joining the lawsuit was not a decision I made lightly. Putting your name on a federal complaint means it is public. It means anyone can look it up. It means potential employers, colleagues, and strangers on the internet can form opinions about you based on a court filing. I knew all of this going in.

But I also knew that staying silent was not an option. Not for me. When you see something wrong and you have the ability to stand up, you stand up. That is not a complicated moral calculation. It is a basic one.

The Settlement

The case ultimately settled. Columbia University agreed to a series of commitments including antisemitism awareness programming and scholarships. I want to be clear about how I view this outcome: I think it was a good result. Lawsuits are not about vengeance. They are about accountability and change. Columbia acknowledged that there was a problem, and the university committed to addressing it. That is exactly what the lawsuit was designed to achieve.

I hold no animosity toward Columbia. I received an excellent education there, both during my postdoctoral fellowship and during my time at the Mailman School. The faculty and staff I worked with were, overwhelmingly, dedicated professionals who cared about their students. The settlement was a sign that the institution was willing to do the work necessary to make the campus safe and welcoming for everyone, including Jewish students.

You can read more about the case and its resolution in the Kasowitz Benson Torres press release and in Columbia's own public statements regarding the settlement.

What It Taught Me About Honesty

Here is the part of the story that connects directly to what I do today. The experience of standing up in that lawsuit crystallized something I had always believed but had never been forced to act on so publicly: honesty is not just a value. It is a practice. It requires courage. It has costs. And it is always, always worth it.

When I put my name on that complaint, I was saying: this is true, and I am willing to be identified as someone who said so. That is a very specific kind of honesty. It is not the comfortable kind where you tell someone their presentation was great. It is the kind where you put something on the line because the truth matters more than your comfort.

That experience changed how I think about everything, including my career. When I left dentistry and moved into insurance, I carried that lesson with me. And when I looked at the burial insurance industry, I saw an environment that desperately needed the same kind of honesty.

Why Burial Insurance Needs Honesty

The final expense insurance industry has a problem, and it is not a small one. Too many agents and agencies rely on fear, confusion, and high-pressure tactics to sell policies to seniors. I have seen mailers designed to look like government notices. I have seen agents quote premiums for coverage amounts that make no sense for the client's situation. I have seen policies sold to people who did not fully understand what they were buying.

Seniors are lied to about burial insurance every single day. They are told they need $50,000 in coverage when $15,000 would handle their funeral costs. They are sold "guaranteed issue" policies with two-year waiting periods when they could have qualified for immediate coverage at a lower premium. They are rushed through applications by agents who earn higher commissions on more expensive products.

I could not stay silent when my fellow students were being harassed at Columbia. And I cannot stay silent when seniors are being misled about something as important as how their funeral will be paid for.

That is why I founded Easy Burial Quote. The entire premise of this business is radical honesty. When everybody lies, the truth is the best ad you can run. I publish real rates from real carriers. I explain the difference between immediate benefit and graded benefit policies in plain language. I tell people when they do not need coverage at all. I do not use fake government mailers or scare tactics.

The Thread That Connects Everything

People might look at my resume and see a scattered path: Georgetown, NYU dental school, Columbia fellowship, Columbia public health, a federal civil rights lawsuit, and now burial insurance. But there is a thread that runs through all of it, and that thread is a refusal to accept dishonesty as the cost of doing business.

In dentistry, I gave patients honest treatment plans even when a more aggressive approach would have been more profitable. At Columbia, I stood up for Jewish civil rights even when it would have been easier to keep my head down and finish my degree quietly. And in insurance, I give families honest information about what they need and what they do not need, even when selling them more would put more money in my pocket.

This is not a marketing strategy. It is who I am. The lawsuit at Columbia did not create this instinct. But it did prove to me that acting on it matters. When 45 students put their names on a federal complaint and a major university responds with real commitments to change, that is evidence that honesty works. Not always comfortably. Not always quickly. But it works.

What This Means for You

If you are reading this because you searched my name and wanted to know more about the Columbia lawsuit, now you know. I am proud of what we accomplished. I am proud that I stood up. And I am proud that the settlement resulted in meaningful commitments from a great university.

If you are reading this because you are looking for burial insurance, here is what I want you to know: the same person who put his name on a federal civil rights complaint is the same person who will give you an honest quote. I do not have a financial incentive to mislead you. I work with multiple carriers and I will recommend the one that is actually best for your situation, not the one that pays me the highest commission.

That is the promise. Not because it is good marketing, although it is. But because it is the right thing to do. And I learned a long time ago, on the campus of Columbia University, that doing the right thing is the only thing that lets you sleep at night.