Harvard accused of ignoring anti-Semitic harassment in new lawsuit
The Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education filed a lawsuit against Harvard for allegedly allowing anti-Semitism on campus during the recent pro-Hamas encampment.
According to the lawsuit, Jewish students have been discriminated against at Harvard for 'years,' and especially since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
On May 21, the Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education filed a lawsuit against Harvard University for allegedly allowing anti-Semitism on campus during the recent pro-Hamas encampment.
According to the lawsuit, Jewish students have been discriminated against at the Cambridge, Massachusetts school for “years,” and especially in the months since the Oct. 7 attack against Israel.
“In recent years, and especially in the last few months, Jewish and Israeli students have been subjected to cruel antisemitic bullying, harassment, and discrimination,” the suit alleges. “And when Harvard is presented with incontrovertible evidence of antisemitic conduct, it ignores and tolerates it.”
The lawsuit additionally alleges that the Harvard administration has been “deliberately indifferent” toward the plight of Jewish students who are being harassed.
“As Plaintiffs and their members have experienced, Harvard has been deliberately indifferent to the pervasive antisemitism on campus, creating an unbearable educational environment,” according to the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs and other Jewish and Israeli students feel isolated, unwelcome, and unable to enjoy the educational rights and benefits to which they are legally entitled.”
The lawsuit also asserts that Harvard allowed anti-Semitism to grow following the Oct. 7 attack against Israel.
“Harvard should have been a place for Jewish and Israeli students to find solace. But it was the opposite, in no small part because Defendant allowed antisemitism and anti-Israeli sentiment to fester without adequate response,” the document notes. “On a daily basis since October 7, 2023, Harvard students and faculty have called for violence against Jews and for the destruction of Israel, and celebrated Hamas’s terrorism.”
In two instances, Harvard students allegedly called for Jews to “cook” and for Harvard Hillel to “burn in hell.”
In addition to presenting the specific acts of anti-Semitism perpetrated by students, the lawsuit argues that “professors, too, have explicitly supported anti-Jewish and anti-Israel terrorism, and spread antisemitic propaganda in their classes.”
“For years Harvard’s leaders have allowed the school to become a breeding ground for hateful anti-Jewish and radical anti-Israel views,” Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center, said in a recent statement. “An outside investigator warned of the problem more than a year ago, Harvard Kennedy School’s Dean acknowledged it, and yet crickets. When are university leaders going to learn that in order to prevent your school from becoming a cesspool of anti-Semitism action is required?”
“Schools must hold students and faculty accountable,” Marcus continued. “They must follow through with public consequences when Jews are harassed and discriminated against like they would for any other minority group, as required by law.”
Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
