District Judge Richard Stearns ruled on Tuesday that a lawsuit filed against Harvard accusing the university of antisemitism can proceed, saying “the facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students.”
Harvard was sued in January over its campus environment and the handling of protests after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, saying Jewish students were harassed and the school did not address the issue adequately.
Stearns said Tuesday after hearing arguments last week that the case could proceed, but he did not rule on the merits of the allegations.
The judge did say, however, that plaintiffs have “plausibly pled” an abusive environment towards Jewish students.
“The protests were, at times, confrontational and physically violent, and plaintiffs legitimately fear their repetition. The harassment also impacted plaintiffs’ life experience at Harvard; they dreaded walking through the campus, missed classes, and stopped participating in extracurricular events,” Stearns said.
The judge also showed skepticisms at Harvard’s arguments that it was operating on free speech principles in its response to the events.
“The court consequently is dubious that Harvard can hide behind the First Amendment to justify avoidance of its Title VI obligations. At any rate, whether this argument has any teeth is a decision best reserved for a later day,” he said.
“The record is too thin to determine whether Harvard in fact acted to protect free speech rights as it contends Title VI required it to do and whether the protest activity itself comes within the protections of the First Amendment,” Stearns added.
University spokesperson Jason Newton said in a statement, "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."
“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.
Harvard's troubles began immediately after the October terror attack, when 30 student-led groups put out a statement blaming Israel for the massacre.
At the beginning of the year, the former president of Harvard stepped down, partly because of criticisms regarding antisemitism on campus.
In May, the House Education and the Workforce Committee accused the Ivy League school of suppressing the recommendations of its Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG).
“Not only did the AAG find that antisemitism was a major issue on campus, it offered several recommendations on how to combat the problem — none of which were ever implemented with any real vigor," said Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).
