Harvard let antisemitism run wild — as Jewish students face slurs, intimidation and attacks, suit claims
Harvard University has been slapped with a federal civil rights lawsuit for allegedly allowing antisemitism against Jewish students to flourish unchecked on campus — even before the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
“Jews are fair game,” the complaint filed Wednesday by The Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education said.
“Students and faculty can harass and discriminate against Jews, and they can do so openly and with impunity.
“When Harvard is presented with incontrovertible evidence of anti-Semitic conduct, it ignores and tolerates it,” the 72-page suit claims.
“Harvard’s permissive posture towards antisemitism is the opposite of its aggressive enforcement of the same as the anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to protect other minorities.”
Former Harvard president Claudine Gay’s weak response to antisemitism in testimony during a congressional hearing last year is believed to have contributed to her ouster.
Harvard last year received $676 million in federal funding and must comply with the the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 to bar campus discrimination as a condition of aid.
The suit claims the Ivy League school in Cambridge, Mass. just outside of Boston allowed antisemitism against Jewish students to “fester”, by condoning and even aiding and abetting Jew hatred.
The complaint filed in Boston cited numerous examples of Harvard turning a blind eye to antisemitism, which triggered a separate federal lawsuit filed by Jewish students earlier this year.
— Right after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, thousands of protestors showed up at Harvard calling for genocide against Jews and began harassing, intimidating, and threatening Jewish students.
Harvard’s first action?
Forming a task force to protect the individuals spewing Jew hatred, the complaint said.
— Harvard’s student message board looked like it was out of Nazi Germany, filled with vile anti-semitic slurs, threats and conspiracy theories, including calls for Jews to “cook” and the the Jewish student group Hillel to “burn in hell.”
The message board featured an antisemitic cartoon resembling Nazi-era propaganda that depicts a hand etched with a Star of David and a dollar sign holding a noose around the necks of what looks like a black man and an Arab man.
The cartoon was posted not only by student groups but also by faculty.
— A Jewish student was physically assaulted. When protestors realized a student was Jewish from a blue bracelet he was wearing in solidarity with Israel, a mob swarmed and surrounded him, and began physically accosting him and yelling in his face, “shame, shame, shame,” the complaint said.
The assault was captured on video, yet Harvard took no action to redress the physical assault, said the complaint said.
— Three Israeli students were intentionally discriminated against and “tormented” throughout a course that they took at Harvard Kennedy School last spring with Professor Marshall Ganz. After they proposed a project about their Israeli Jewish identity, Arab and Muslim classmates objected, complaining that the idea of a “Jewish democracy” was “offensive.”
The professor and teaching fellows agreed. Ganz compared the existence of a “Jewish state” to “white supremacy,” and threatened the students with “consequences” if they proceeded with the topic.
When the students persisted, Ganz’s misconduct metastasized into repeated taunting and humiliation throughout the course, the complaint said.
Ganz then lowered the students’ grades as a “consequence” for their refusal to change their topic, the complaint said.
Anti-Israel, anti-Jewish student protestors have occupied and vandalized buildings, interrupted classes, and exams, and made the campus unbearable for their Jewish and Israeli classmates, the complaint said.
Jewish students are bullied and spat on, intimidated, and threatened, and subject to verbal and physical harassment, according to the complaint.
Professors contributed to the bigotry, too, explicitly supporting anti-Jewish and anti-Israel terrorism, and spreading anti-Semitic propaganda in their classes, the complaint said.
A doctoral student at the medical school mentioned in the complaint described how she hides in her room and avoids public spaces, including her research lab, for fear of being harassed and attacked.
According to the complaint, “Harvard’s message was clear: discrimination, harassment, or violence is acceptable so long as it is directed at Israelis and Jews.”
Enough is enough, the plaintiffs said.
“For years Harvard’s leaders have allowed the school to become a breeding ground for hateful anti-Jewish and radical anti-Israel views,” said Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights.
Marcus said an outside investigator documented anti-Jewish bigotry a year ago, but the university has been slow to act.
The Post has reached out to Harvard for comment.
