Published by The Algemeiner on 11/11/2024 A lawsuit accusing Harvard University of ignoring antisemitism has been cleared to proceed to discovery, a phase of the case which may unearth damaging revelations about how college officials discussed and crafted policy responses to anti-Jewish hatred before and after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. The case, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (Brandeis Center), centers on several incidents involving Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz during the 2022-2023 academic year. Ganz allegedly refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students for his course, titled “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.” He castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” and denying them the chance to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.” During an investigation of the incidents, which Harvard delegated to a third party firm, Ganz admitted that he believed “that the students’ description of Israel as a Jewish democracy … was similar to ‘talking about a white supremacist state.’” The firm went on to determine that Ganz “denigrated” the Israeli students and fostered “a hostile learning environment,” conclusions which Harvard accepted but never acted on. On Friday, Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus told The Algemeiner that the latest development in this case, prompted by the judge presiding over it, is a step towards achieving justice for the organization’s Jewish clients. “Attempting to halt discovery was Harvard’s best chance to convince the court that we didn’t have a case, and they failed,” Marcus said. “The court found that our claims stated violations of the law, and we now have an opportunity to substantiate them by asking for Harvard’s documents, interviewing interrogatories of Harvard, and finding other information about the university in other discovery means. The evidence we obtain will then be used at trial.” Harvard University has fiercely fought the lawsuits brought by its Jewish students. Another filed by a group led by graduate student Shabbos Kestenbaum recently overcame an effort it to have it dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiffs lack legal standing. At least one elite college, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been successful in quelling the claims of its Jewish students by appealing to a similar argument. The Brandeis Center and Kestenbaum cases cannot be so easily disappeared, Marcus said. “Our complaint is much more detailed and laden with a greater number of incidents described in detail and show matters of real gravity, including physical assault,” he continued. “The Harvard Kennedy school matter is one which resulted in the university’s own independent investigator’s determining that Ganz’s actions constituted violations of Harvard’s rules. Harvard, meanwhile, had a significant amount of time to address these problems and has failed to do so, but it has repeatedly failed to do the right thing.” The Brandeis Center is seeking injunctive relief “preventing defendant [Harvard] violating Title VI [of the US Civil Rights Act] going forward” and the awarding of attorneys’ fees. According to court documents, the situation for Jewish students at Harvard worsened after Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught. Following the tragedy, while scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide, 31 student groups at Harvard issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open air prison” in Gaza. Students stormed academic buildings chanting “globalize the intifada,” a mob followed and surrounded a Jewish graduate student, screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” into his ears, and the Harvard Law School student government passed a resolution that falsely accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing. High-level university officials and faculty also engaged in questionable conduct. In December, former Harvard president Claudine Gay told a US congressional committee that calling for a genocide of Jews living in Israel would only violate school rules “depending on the context.” In February, Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine — a spinoff of a student group allegedly linked to terrorist organizations — shared an antisemitic cartoon on social media which showed a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. The group’s former leader, history professor Walter Johnson, later participated in a “Gaza encampment” protest in which students clamored for a boycott of Israel. Harvard president Alan Garber, installed after Gay resigned from office after being outed as a serial plagiarist, has, experts have said, been inconsistent in managing the campus’ unrest. During summer, The Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard downgraded “disciplinary sanctions” it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it suspended for illegally occupying Harvard Yard for nearly five weeks, a reversal of policy which defied the university’s previous statements regarding the matter. Unrepentant, the students, members of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), celebrated the revocation of the punishments on social media and promised to disrupt the campus again. Earlier this semester, however, Garber appeared to denounce a pro-Hamas student group which marked the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks by praising the brutal invasion as an act of revolutionary justice that should be repeated until the State of Israel is destroyed, despite having earlier announced a new “institutional neutrality” policy which ostensibly prohibits the university from weighing in on contentious political issues. While Garber ultimately has said more than Gay when the same group praised the Oct. 7 massacre last academic year, his administration’s handling of campus antisemitism has been ambiguous, according to observers — and described even by students who benefited from its being so as “caving in.” Now, committed to fighting lawsuits it could have settled with terms favorable to the alleged victims of discrimination — a course of action taken by Columbia University and New York University — Harvard’s handling of antisemitism may be decided by a judge.