Jewish Students Sue Harvard For Failing To Stop Anti-Semitism While Threatening Discipline For Fatphobia

 A group of Jewish Harvard University students filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Harvard University of promoting anti-Semitism and selectively enforcing its policies to protect Jews from persecution.

Student Alexander Kestenbaum's lawsuit states, "Harvard allows students and faculty to advocate the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the world's only Jewish state, without any consequences." "Meanwhile, Harvard is requiring students to take a training class that warns they will be disciplined if they engage in sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia, or other regressive behavior."

Kestenbaum's lawsuit, filed jointly with the group Students Against Antisemitism (SAA), accuses Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israeli citizens. The deadly massacre comes amid growing criticism for its response to the massacre. Kestenbaum, a Jewish student at Harvard Divinity School, is joined in the lawsuit by five other unnamed students who are SAA members.

"Harvard, America's leading university, has become a hotbed of rampant anti-Semitic hatred and persecution," the lawsuit says. "A mob of pro-Hamas students and faculty numbering in the hundreds have marched on Harvard's campus, chanting hateful anti-Semitic slogans and calling for the death of Jews and Israel."

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, references the mob taking over campus buildings, inciting violence and attacking Jews on campus. It also accuses administrators and professors of promoting anti-Semitism and dismissing students who object.

The lawsuit says, "What is most shocking about all this is Harvard's abject failure and refusal to lift a finger to stop this outrageous anti-Semitic conduct and punish the students and faculty who carried it out." "

The lawsuit argues that anti-Semitism has been a campus problem at Harvard for years, but claims Harvard is now enabling it.

The lawsuit raises the fact that in the 1920s Harvard imposed quotas on admissions "to reduce the number of Jews" and reinstated Harvard as a 'Gentile' college.

It states, "Harvard has enacted admissions policies that have drastically reduced the number of Jewish students by sixty percent, which represents a deliberate effort, like Harvard's quotas a hundred years earlier, to exclude Jews. to do." According to the lawsuit, 25 percent of undergraduate students in 2013 were Jewish, while in 2023 that number was less than 10 percent.

The lawsuit also lists several other incidents of harassment and targeting of Jewish students before October 7, including anti-Israel demonstrations, vandalism at Harvard Hillel, and anti-Semitic educational materials.

One of the unnamed students expressed concerns about Harvard's planned summer program at Palestinian Birzeit University, which is dominated by Hamas, as first reported by The Daily Wire this week.

“Among other things, buildings and events in Birzeit are named after convicted terrorists; Students wear fake explosive vests and wave Hamas flags in a military parade on campus; In May 2022, Hamas won the majority of seats in the Birzeit student government; “And, two weeks before the October 7 massacre, eight students were arrested with weapons and plans to carry out a terrorist attack,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit expressed concern about several letters signed by students and faculty following the October 7 killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas and Harvard's failure to immediately condemn Hamas and anti-Semitism on campus.

It also lists various protests that took place on campus where Jewish students were harassed and physically attacked.

Alom Teti-Tamaklo, a Harvard Divinity student and residential proctor, and Ibrahim Bharmal, a Harvard Law Review editor and teaching fellow, have been named as the attackers.

"Harvard has imposed no discipline on Bharmal and has done nothing to sanction Teti-Tamaclo other than relieving him of proctor responsibilities," the lawsuit says.

On October 19, four unnamed students were in discussion with Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump administration staffer who is Jewish, in Harvard Law's main building when hundreds of protesters marched, chanting "from the river to the sea" and Israel. Accused of genocide according to the trial.

“The group stormed the main building of Harvard Law, marched the length of the building's primary first floor hallway, and blocked the hallway outside the study room where SAA members and Greenblatt were hiding. “For fear of violent attack, students in study halls removed signs of their Jewishness, such as kippot, or hid under desks,” it states.

The lawsuit says Jeffrey Sierra, assistant director of student life at Harvard Law School, directed concerned students to the Mental Health Services Center and said "he was in no position to do more."

According to the lawsuit, on November 16 and 17, during a 24-hour protest, anti-Israel students occupied University Hall and were provided burritos and candy by two deans.

The lawsuit also accused several professors of harassing and targeting the plaintiffs, including John Hanson, who promoted a podcast that defended Hamas's October 7 attack. It also cites an email from Cleo Takas, who canceled her class "in solidarity" with the October 20 anti-Israel walkout.

"Harvard's campus is a safe place for students from all protected minority groups except Jews," the lawsuit says.

Israeli student sues prestigious art school for serious anti-Semitic harassment

The lawsuit notes that while Harvard is a private school with an endowment of $50.7 billion – the largest of any American university – it received financial support from the federal government through grants and loans, including $642 million in 2022. and includes $676 million in 2023.

According to the lawsuit, Harvard has failed to enforce five of its policies protecting Jewish students, including its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policy; University-wide statements on rights and responsibilities, free speech guidelines, Harvard's student organization policies, and policies in Harvard's various student school handbooks.

“Subjected to intense anti-Semitic criticism, including from his own professors and Harvard administrators, Kestenbaum and other Jewish students, including SAA members, have been denied the ability and opportunity to fully participate in Harvard's academic and other programs and have been Kept here. 'Serious emotional and physical risk,' the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit lists several demands, including firing or suspending administrators, professors and students involved in anti-Semitic discrimination or abuse, requiring anti-Semitic training, and monetary damages.