A recent civil lawsuit brought forward against Harvard University by the Washington, D.C.-based group The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law will proceed to discovery after a decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns was released on Nov. 5.
Stearns found that there was not enough evidence to dismiss the suit on the count of “creating a hostile learning environment” for Jewish students on campus, although the judge did dismiss the charges of direct discrimination and retaliation.
The lawsuit alleges that Harvard allowed “cruel, antisemitic bullying, harassment, and discrimination,” to continue unaddressed pre- and post-Oct. 7 and that, despite knowledge of the circumstance, acted unreasonably in allowing the harassment to continue.
The lawsuit stems from several incidents over multiple months in which reported incidents of antisemitism were made known to Harvard administrators with little to no action being taken to address the issues.
One incident involved three members of the Harvard Kennedy School who formed a group for a class project based on their values and chose the topic of their Israeli and Jewish identities.
The students were allegedly called into the office of the professor teaching the course and pressured to drop the subject. When the students refused, the professor allegedly retaliated against the students by allowing other students to “engage in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli rhetoric during class without offering the HKS Members any opportunity to respond,” according to Stearns’ decision.
Harvard launched an investigation after the Brandeis Center sent a letter to the school on behalf of the students, which found that it was “more likely than not” that the professor’s actions “ran counter” to Harvard free speech and antibias policies while creating a hostile learning environment for the HKS members.
But although Harvard accepted the conclusions of the investigation, there was no evidence of any action taken against the professor for policy violations.
Another incident occurred on Oct. 18, 2023, when a member of the Brandeis Center attending the Harvard Business School (HBS) was filming a “die-in” protest on campus and was allegedly forcibly removed from a public space, including being grabbed and shoved by two individuals.
Those two students were arrested and charged by the Suffolk County district attorney for misdemeanor assault, battery, and civil rights violations.
When the HBS member contacted Harvard about disciplinary action, the school allegedly declined to act, citing the pending litigation.
After pressure from Congress, Harvard assigned the matter to an outside counsel for investigation on Jan. 3, but no action was taken by the investigators until April 10 when they reached out to the HBS member to schedule an interview.
Stearns’ report said that no evidence suggests the investigators have reached out to the alleged perpetrators to schedule an interview as of Nov. 5.
Another member of the Brandeis Center attending Harvard Medical School (HMS) reported weeks of repeated “rabid protests” that were so distressing to the student that they stopped coming to campus.
The student allegedly emailed Harvard administrators several times asking for assistance and never heard back from any of them, according to Stearns’ report.
The student also attempted to file a formal complaint with Harvard’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, but dropped the complaint over fears of retaliation after being informed they could not proceed anonymously.
Stearns’ report listed several more alleged incidents throughout the spring 2024 semester in which Harvard appeared to have taken zero action to address the problems.
Harvard challenged the claim of deliberate indifference to antisemitism on the basis that it was unaware of the harassment faced by the HMS student and had launched an investigation into the reports of antisemitism in the cases of the HBS and HKS incidents.
“This argument [for the case of the HMS member], however, is wholly inconsistent with the Complaint, which directly alleges that the HMS Member ‘has emailed Harvard administrators on numerous occasions’ and even tried to file a formal complaint,” Stearns wrote. “It accordingly does not provide a basis for dismissal in this case.”
In the case of the HBS and HKS members, Stearns wrote that Harvard’s argument for dismissal misconstrued the nature of the complaint, because “the alleged unreasonableness in Harvard’s response arises from its failure (for more than a year) to take any remedial action based on the results of one investigation and its failure (for months on end) to meaningfully advance the other.”
The Brandeis Center celebrated the decision to proceed to discovery in the case and said that the lawsuit served as a warning to other universities that the days of inadequate responses to campus antisemitism was at an end.
“This is a huge win for Jewish students, both at Harvard and across the country,” wrote Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center. “Just as the House of Representatives’ report recently concluded, Judge Stearns recognized that Harvard failed to address antisemitism, and he flat out rejected Harvard’s disgraceful and continued attempts to gaslight Jewish students.”
