Students sue Harvard, calling it a ‘stronghold’ of anti-Semitism
Six students sued Harvard on Wednesday, claiming the renowned university had become a “stronghold of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and intimidation,” exacerbated by the Hamas attack on Israel last October.
The complaintfiled in federal court in Massachusetts, says Harvard professors have promulgated anti-Semitism in their courses and intimidated students who object.
“What is most striking about all of this is Harvard’s stunning failure and refusal to lift a finger to stop and deter this outrageous anti-Semitic behavior and to punish the students and faculty who perpetrate it,” she said. the lawsuit.
Like other schools, Harvard has been plagued by demonstrations and clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students since the conflict broke out. In December, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT testified at a Congressional hearing investigating anti-Semitism on campus. Then-Harvard President Claudine Gay, the first Black person in that role, faced fierce backlash for her comments, which were among the factors that led to her resignation this month.
Harvard is also among a growing list of universities facing federal civil rights investigations into allegations of anti-Semitism.
The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment and declined to comment to The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper. quote ongoing lawsuits.
The university has previously said it will not tolerate any form of anti-Semitism. Before the resignation of Dr. Gay, she said in a statement: “My administration has repeatedly made it crystal clear that anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred have no place at Harvard. Threats and intimidation have no place at Harvard.”
The 77-page complaint names one plaintiff, Alexander Kestenbaum, a Jewish student enrolled at Harvard Divinity School. The other five plaintiffs are not named in the case, but four are listed as law students, and one is listed as having a doctorate in public health. student. They are all members of Students Against Antisemitism, a group founded last month in Delaware.
The case was brought on behalf of the Harvard students by two law firms, including a New York firm called Kasowitz Benson Torres. The law firm recently filed similar cases against New York University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Kasowitz Benson Torres is known for his ties to the Trump administration, and the claims in the Harvard lawsuit are based in part on an executive order signed by former President Donald J. Trump in 2019, which stated that part of the Civil Rights Act applied to discrimination against Jews in institutions receiving federal aid.
The complaint goes so far as to accuse Harvard of deliberately reducing the number of Jewish students, claiming that there has been a sharp decline over the past decade “that could only demonstrate a deliberate effort by Harvard to to minimize the Jewish student population.”
The complaint cites a litany of examples from 2016 that the students called anti-Semitic.
“Harvard’s double standard starts at the top,” plaintiffs say in the lawsuit, alleging that the school requires students to take a training course that warns them they will be disciplined if they engage in “sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia or other undesirable behavior. “but allows students and faculty members to “advocate without consequence the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish country in the world.”
The case points to a screening at Harvard Divinity School last September of the film “Israelism,” which argues that American Jews are raising their children with pro-Israel indoctrination. The screening caused Mr. Kestenbaum to suffer “anxiety and great discomfort,” the complaint said.
“Anti-Semitic tropes displayed during that display elicited applause rather than censure,” the lawsuit said.
The students in the lawsuit are seeking the removal of some professors who participated in the instances they named and seeking unspecified compensation.