Anti-Israel student union at MIT agrees to settlement with Jewish students
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Graduate Student Union was ordered to pay a settlement to Jewish members after denying their requests for religious exemptions from union dues.
The dispute arose amid concerns regarding the union's support for the anti-Israel BDS movement, which led to objections from five Jewish graduate students.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Graduate Student Union was ordered to pay a settlement to Jewish members after denying their requests for religious exemptions from union dues.
The dispute arose amid concerns regarding the union’s support for the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, which led to objections from five Jewish graduate students.
These students will now be exempt from paying union dues and plan to redirect those funds to charities that aid struggling Israelis, including American Friends of Magen David Adom and American Friends of Leket.
As part of the settlement, GSU will also be required to inform approximately 3,000 students of their right to resign their union memberships and stop payments for political activities. Students who exercise this right will now be offered a reduced due payment amount without facing any penalties.
Students’ concerns were exacerbated by GSUs “radical ideology” and embrace of the BDS movement, which the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) considers to be anti-Semitic. This matter was brought to attention when Jewish graduate student Will Sussman testified before Congress in July.
Sussman cited various examples of these anti-Israel activities by GSU faculty that included a staff director’s public celebration of the Oct. 7 attack on live television, where she declared: “Victory is Ours.”
Meanwhile, the union’s vice president was said to have been arrested and subsequently placed on paid “union leave” funded by union dues, following her involvement in an anti-Israel protest.
BDS’s mission is “aimed at delegitimizing and pressuring Israel, through the diplomatic, financial, professional, academic and cultural isolation of Israel, Israeli individuals, Israeli institutions, and, increasingly, Jews who support Israel’s right to exist,” according to Sussman’s testimony.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation partnered with the graduates to provide legal counsel to those denied exemptions from union dues. Mark Mix, president of the foundation, stated in a press release: “Forcing GSU union officials to abandon their blatantly discriminatory dues practices is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Mix also emphasized that “defending basic free association rights shouldn’t require such lengthy litigation, and meaningful reforms are necessary to ensure union support is truly voluntary.”
Sussman shared with Campus Reform an Aug. 22 statement he posted to X, saying: “Not only did we win the right to divert our union dues to charity, but we also won the freedom to choose which charities. I donate to @CrohnsColitisFn (a common Jewish illness) and many of my friends donate to @Mdais (the Israeli Red Cross) and @leketisrael (the Israeli National Food Bank). With at least 18 of us, that’s over $12,000 going to good causes instead of our antisemitic union.”
A spokesperson from the advocacy organization StopAntisemitism told Campus Reform: “This is a great victory for MIT graduate students--Jewish, pro-Israel, and all people of conscience who don’t want their money to support antisemitic movements, which would be a gross violation of conscience. We hope faculty will have the same rights and other schools across the country will quickly fall in line with this precedent. All people of good faith should stand strong against terror, rape, kidnapping and murder and we hope that enough members of the academic community will boycott these antisemitic, anti-American so-called protest groups such that BDS on campus becomes a thing of the past.”
Campus Reform has contacted MIT, GSU, Mix, and the plaintiffs for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
