Published by the Daily Pennsylvanian on 10/23/2025 The Brandeis Center filed an amicus brief on Wednesday urging a federal court to reverse the dismissal of a lawsuit which accused Penn of insufficiently responding to antisemitism on campus. The Oct. 22 brief — submitted by a Jewish legal rights advocacy group in the 3rd United States Circuit Court of Appeals — responded to a December 2023 lawsuit originally brought by 2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby and College junior Jordan Davis. The filing accused Penn and the district court that dismissed the lawsuit of ignoring a “hostile educational environment” for Jewish students. “In evaluating the adequacy and effectiveness of Penn’s responses to harassment reported by Plaintiffs to the school’s administration, the court completely failed to consider the broader hostile environment for Jews on campus, as exacerbated by the intense and growing antisemitic climate in educational settings and across the U.S.,” the brief read. It asserted that the district court failed to acknowledge antisemitic events experienced by the plaintiffs that have made them feel “threatened and or unsafe.” In March 2024, two new plaintiffs — 2025 Penn graduate Noah Rubin and Students Against Antisemitism — joined the suit. An amended complaint at the time asserted that Penn had become an “incubation lab” for antisemitism and that the University placed Jewish and Israeli students at “severe emotional and physical risk.” “Without considering these factors—or engaging much at all with Plaintiffs’ detailed allegations of anti-Jewish harassment and hate—the district court cannot have properly assessed the adequacy of Penn’s responses,” the brief read. The brief also cited high rates of anti-Jewish sentiment across the United States in support of the plaintiffs, including a rise in antisemitic incidents on college campuses and Jewish Americans feeling “compelled to hide their Jewish identity.” The Brandeis Center, which has previously sought federal action against Penn through the Department of Education, detailed the reasoning behind the filing in an Oct. 23 statement. “Inaction from universities and other entities in addressing anti-semitism is normalized when courts overlook the broader context of surging anti-semitism nationwide,” the center’s chairman, Kenneth Marcus, wrote. “This undoubtedly leads to the proliferation of similar incidents in the future.” The initial lawsuit was brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs receiving federal financial assistance. The plaintiffs accused Penn of failing to enforce its own policies to protect Jewish students from discrimination, harassment, and intimidation on campus. This June, federal judge Mitchell Goldberg granted Penn’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, finding “no allegations” that Penn took any actions which could “be interpreted as antisemitic with the intention of causing harm to the Plaintiffs.” In his memorandum opinion, Goldberg wrote that the plaintiffs would have another opportunity to file an amended complaint for two of the alleged violations, leaving the lawsuit open to future action.