He was the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education from August 6, 2018 through July 9, 2020, after which he resumed his position at the Brandeis Center.
[5] Marcus served in various roles in the George W. Bush administration, beginning as General Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
[8] Marcus joined with then-Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Rene Alexander Acosta to issue guidance warning school districts to cease racially segregated activities.
Their joint letter warned that practices such as holding segregated high school proms or naming separate race-based sets of recipients for senior-year honors (such as homecoming queen) "are inconsistent with federal law and should not be tolerated.
"[17] After he left government, Marcus served as the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Visiting Professor of Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York Baruch College School of Public Affairs.
He also oversaw the Ackerman Lecture Series, which invites intellectuals and public figures to spur debate and new thinking on equality and social justice.
[18] Marcus opposes the BDS movement that calls for comprehensive boycotts against Israel, similar to those imposed on South Africa during the Apartheid era.
Marcus is described as “the single most effective and respected force when it comes to both litigation and the utilization of the civil rights statutes” to combat antisemitism by a visiting professor at Brown University, who once served on the Brandeis Center board.
These complaints alleged that certain activities by pro-Palestinian activist campus groups constituted violations of Title VI anti-discrimination provisions through "harassment" or "intimidation" that "targets" and creates a "hostile educational environment" for Jewish students.
[citation needed] In the first complaint Marcus filed in 2011, he claimed the chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures department at Barnard College had "steered" a Jewish student away from taking a class with Joseph Massad, a Palestinian professor and outspoken critic of Israel.
[18] University President Lee Bollinger defended Massad and said it was "extremely unfair" he was named in the complaint since he played no part in the alleged "steering."
[26] In May 2020, nine civil rights groups filed a complaint against Marcus, charging that he had abused his authority and side-stepped department policy by reopening the case.
[27] Jonathan Tobin wrote such criticisms are "toxic partisanship," and that even Marcus's acknowledge his accomplishments and that he has done "as much, if not more, to fight anti-Semitism on college campuses as anyone in government has ever done.
[35] Marcus stated that his regulatory adjustments aim to restore fairness and due process within educational settings while also respecting the rights and experiences of sexual assault survivors.
[34][33] Proponents of Marcus’s policies have defended these measures, calling the cross examination a “necessary evil” to ensure fairness for all parties involved in Title IX proceedings.
[33] In 2020, the Education Department announced that the Pennsylvania State University had to strengthen sexual misconduct investigation, despite having already faced backlash surrounding their procedures after the Jerry Sandusky controversy.
In June 2024, Marcus testified before the House Ways and Means Committee[46] on the topic of “antisemitism, radical faculty, and the failure of university leadership”[47] on college campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
He emphasized the need for university leadership to take accountability for “student violent extremism” and “professorial politicization” contributing to Jewish hate on campus.