Federal Judge Denies Harvard’s Motion to Dismiss Antisemitism Lawsuit

Updated August 6, 2024, at 9:31 p.m.

A U.S. district judge denied Harvard’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by six Jewish students alleging that the University failed to address “severe and pervasive” campus antisemitism.

The 25-page ruling on Tuesday will allow the lawsuit against Harvard to proceed to discovery, dragging out the case for months if not years. The process will also likely force the University to provide greater evidence that it has taken measures to protect Jewish students on its campus.

U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns wrote in the ruling that “in many instances” Harvard did not respond to “an eruption of antisemitism” on campus, citing its failure to take disciplinary measures against “offending students and faculty.”

“In other words, the facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students,” Stearns wrote.

Though Stearns did not rule on the merits of the case, he allowed the claim that Harvard acted with “deliberate indifference” to proceed because the plaintiffs’ examples “suffice to state a breach of contract claim.” Stearns’ ruling, however, dismissed the claim that Harvard directly discriminated against Jewish students.

“We appreciate that the Court dismissed the claim that Harvard directly discriminated against members of our community, and we understand that the court considers it too early to make determinations on other claims,” University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement.

“Harvard is confident that once the facts in this case are made clear, it will be evident that Harvard has acted fairly and with deep concern for supporting our Jewish and Israeli students,” he added.

The ruling comes more than one week after the judge heard arguments in the suit from the attorneys representing the six Jewish students and Harvard lawyer Seth P. Waxman ’73. After the two-hour hearing, the judge declined to immediately rule on the motion to dismiss the suit.

Marc E. Kasowitz, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said in an interview that “as the case proceeds, we’re going to take all the steps that are necessary and appropriate to protect Harvard’s Jewish students.”

“And the first step that we’re going to take is getting discovery of Harvard’s internal files and communications that show the full extent of its failures here,” he added.

It is still unclear what the internal files and communications could reveal, but they are likely to shed light on how members of Harvard’s leadership responded to the most turbulent semester in the University’s recent history.

Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard Divinity School graduate and the only named plaintiff in the lawsuit, wrote on Tuesday that “Jewish students will continue to speak up.”

“We are delighted that the judge recognizes what we have been saying for months now: Harvard has enabled, normalized, and celebrated a culture of antisemitism on its campus,” he wrote.

The decision is particularly notable because Stearns ruled last week to dismiss a lawsuit against MIT that similarly alleged it had failed to combat antisemitism on campus. Stearns wrote in his ruling on Harvard’s motion that “despite MIT’s failure of clairvoyance, it did respond with a perhaps overly measured but nonetheless consistent sense of purpose in returning civil order and discourse to its campus.”

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers wrote in a post on X that it is “very significant that a highly respected progressive federal judge (Stearns was an important aide to George McGovern) who dismissed the anti Semitism lawsuit against MIT has allowed the case against Harvard to proceed.”

The initial lawsuit against Harvard, filed in January, stated that the University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin – through its “deliberate indifference” and “enabling” of antisemitism.

In his ruling on Tuesday, Stearns wrote that the plaintiffs “plausibly establish that Harvard’s response failed Title VI’s commands.”

Harvard filed a motion to dismiss the suit three months later. In its memorandum to support the motion, the University outlined the steps it has taken to address antisemitism, including the creation of the presidential task forces to combat antisemitism and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias.

The task forces released their first recommendations in June. The task force on combating antisemitism wrote in its report that Israeli and pro-Israel students described an environment of exclusion and a “lack of follow up” after they reported complaints of antisemitic behavior.

—Staff writer Michelle N. Amponsah can be reached at michelle.amponsah@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @mnamponsah.

—Staff writer Joyce E. Kim can be reached at joyce.kim@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @joycekim324.