Contact: Nicole Rosen 202-309-5724 Complaint accuses Harvard of being “deliberately indifferent” and adopting double standard when it comes to Jew-hatred Washington, D.C., May 22, 2024: The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is suing Harvard University for leaving “cruel anti-Semitic bullying, harassment, and discrimination” unaddressed for years, pre- and post-10/7. According to the complaint, “when Harvard is presented with incontrovertible evidence of anti-Semitic conduct, it ignores and tolerates it. Harvard’s permissive posture towards anti-Semitism is the opposite of its aggressive enforcement of the same anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to protect other minorities.” The waffling this week and last when it came to enforcing consequences for protestors who violated numerous university rules and harassed, threatened and intimidated Jewish students is another example of what is described in this lawsuit. The complaint was filed today in the U. S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The legal team includes Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, as well as Vogel Law Firm PLLC, Libby Hoopes Brooks & Mulvey PC, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, and the Brandeis Center. According to the complaint, daily since 10/7, Harvard students and faculty have called for violence against Jews and celebrated Hamas’ terrorism. Student protestors have occupied and vandalized buildings, interrupted classes, and exams, and made the campus unbearable for their Jewish and Israeli classmates. Professors, too, have explicitly supported anti-Jewish and anti-Israel terrorism, and spread anti-Semitic propaganda in their classes. Jewish students are bullied and spat on, intimidated, and threatened, and subject to verbal and physical harassment. Harvard’s student message board provides a window into the toxic environment for Jewish students. It is filled with vile anti-Semitic slurs, threats and conspiracy theories, including calls for Jews to “cook” and the Harvard Hillel to “burn[ ] in hell,” and an anti-Semitic cartoon resembling Nazi-era propaganda that depicts a hand etched with a Star of David and a dollar sign holding a noose around the necks of what appear to be a black man and an Arab man. The cartoon was posted not only by student groups but also by faculty. Jewish students report self-censoring, both in and out of the classroom, and avoid taking certain classes, attending certain events, or traversing certain areas on campus out of fear that they will be physically or verbally abused. Jewish and Israeli students report feeling isolated, unwelcomed, and unable to enjoy the educational rights and benefits to which they are legally entitled. One of the students mentioned in the complaint describes how she literally hides in her room and avoids public spaces, including her research lab, for fear of being harassed and attacked. Detailed in the complaint are numerous examples documenting how Harvard, pre- and post-10/7, has deliberately ignored anti-Semitic incidents and threats to Jewish students, while supporting and protecting students and faculty perpetrators, allowing anti-Semitism to grow and flourish. According to the complaint, “Harvard’s message was clear: discrimination, harassment, or violence is acceptable so long as it is directed at Israelis and Jews.” For example, when right after 10/7 a thousand protestors showed up at Harvard calling for genocide against Jews and began harassing, intimidating, and threatening Jewish students, Harvard’s first action was to form a task force to protect the individuals spewing the vile anti-Semitic hatred. In fact, according to the complaint, Harvard held itself out as a resource for helping perpetrators erase their digital footprint and hide their actions. Another example involves the physical assault of a Jewish student. When protestors realized a student was Jewish and/or Israeli, from a blue bracelet he was wearing in solidarity with Israel, a mob swarmed and surrounded him, and began physically accosting him and yelling in his face. The student pleaded with them to stop but, assailants violently grabbed him, pushed him, and he was physically attacked until he was ultimately able to escape the mob. The assault was captured on video, yet Harvard took no action to redress the physical assault. And even now that the perpetrators have been charged with criminal assault and battery, Harvard has yet to discipline, suspend, or expel the attackers, or remove them from their leadership positions. In fact, it is believed that Harvard staff have assisted some of the perpetrators in their criminal hearing. A further example involves an incident from a year ago when three Israeli students were intentionally discriminated against and tormented throughout a course that they took at Harvard Kennedy School with Professor Marshall Ganz. After they proposed a project about their Israeli Jewish identity, Arab and Muslim classmates objected, complaining that the idea of a “Jewish democracy” was “offensive.” The professor and teaching fellows agreed. The professor compared the existence of a “Jewish state” to “white supremacy,” and threatened the students with “consequences” if they proceeded with the topic. When the students persisted, Ganz’s misconduct metastasized into repeated taunting and humiliation throughout the course. Ganz then lowered the students’ grades as a “consequence” for their refusal to change their topic. After the Brandeis Center sent a complaint to the university, in March 2023, Harvard launched a third-party-investigation, which agreed with the Brandeis Center and concluded Ganz had illegally created “a hostile education environment,” denied the Israeli students “a learning environment free from bias,” and “denigrated” them “on the basis of their Israeli national origin and Jewish ethnicity and ancestry.” Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf accepted the investigator’s findings and committed to addressing the illegal harassment and discrimination. Yet to date Harvard has not announced the incident, publicly apologized for the discrimination, fired or suspended the professor or disciplined the teaching assistants. It has not even provided training to prevent anti-Semitism or anti-Israel bias in the future. Instead, Harvard’s magazine profiled Ganz and touted him as a civil rights hero. “For years Harvard’s leaders have allowed the school to become a breeding ground for hateful anti-Jewish and radical anti-Israel views,” stated Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights. “An outside investigator warned of the problem more than a year ago, Harvard Kennedy School’s Dean acknowledged it, and yet crickets. When are university leaders going to learn that in order to prevent your school from becoming a cesspool of anti-Semitism action is required? Schools must hold students and faculty accountable. They must follow through with public consequences when Jews are harassed and discriminated against like they would for any other minority group, as required by law.” According to the Brandeis Center complaint, “Jews are fair game” at Harvard. “Students and faculty can harass and discriminate against Jews, and they can do so openly and with impunity.” And making matters even worse, “Harvard will go out of its way to protect anti-Semitic protestors and conspiracy-theorists.” It goes on to say that had Jewish students been “members of any other protected class, Harvard would have disciplined the offenders swiftly and vigorously.” The complaint documents how Harvard aggressively enforces anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to protect other minorities, and it cites numerous examples over the last few years where the school has been vigilant to oust students or force out professors for taking positions that do not fit with school’s philosophy, vision, and policies. The lawsuit alleges that Harvard has violated numerous of its own policies as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin, including discrimination against Jews on the basis of their actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, in educational institutions that receive federal funding. Under the law, harassing, marginalizing, demonizing, and excluding Jewish students on the basis of the Zionist component of their Jewish identity is just as unlawful and discriminatory as attacking a Jewish student for observing the Sabbath or keeping kosher. UNESCO has cautioned that “Jew” and “Zionist” are often used interchangeably today in an attempt by anti-Semites to cloak their hate. In fact, according to President Biden’s U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, released in May 2023, “Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel. When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism. And that is unacceptable.” In 2023, Harvard received $676 million in federal funding. The Department of Education and the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee are currently investigating Harvard for anti-Semitism.
Published October 30, 2023 by Jewish Insider. Story by Haley Cohen. The university had previously acknowledged the three Israeli students were targeted by anti-Zionist Jewish faculty member More than four months after Harvard University found that a professor at its John F. Kennedy School of Government discriminated against three Jewish Israeli graduate students, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on Monday morning sent a legal warning to the university demanding immediate action. “It’s extraordinary that Harvard on the one hand is willing to acknowledge that clients faced inappropriate discrimination and different treatment and yet is not taking meaningful action to address it. This is just the sort of thing you would expect from a university that is under immense pressure for the waves of antisemitism that its students are facing,” Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and former U.S. assistant secretary of education for the Bush and Trump administrations, told JI. The letter, which was first obtained by Jewish Insider, comes as Harvard’s administration faces criticism from lawmakers and alumni over its mishandling of a surge of antisemitism at the school since Hamas’ deadly rampage in Israel on Oct. 7. In a letter to the university’s general counsel, the Brandeis Center said that the school’s failure to address the discrimination claim has exacerbated antisemitism at the university, pointing to a letter published earlier this month on social media by 31 student organizations claiming Israel is “entirely responsible” for Hamas terrorists’ murder of 1,400 Israelis. “It isn’t a coincidence that you would see the extraordinary developments at Harvard since Oct. 7 in light of the weak administrative actions prior to that date,” Marcus said, noting that while the primary incident addressed in the case occurred prior to Hamas’ attacks, “Harvard’s inaction paved the way to what we’ve been seeing since then.” The Brandeis Center wrote, “This failure, on top of other failures of leadership, have set the stage for the worsening climate that we have seen for Jewish Harvard students since [Oct. 7]. Harvard’s failure to speak out against anti-Semitism masked as anti-Zionism has only emboldened the student groups who are now celebrating Hamas’ atrocities. The silence needs to end.” Marcus told JI that “this is a great example of what happens when university administrators fail to address antisemitic incidents when they should. Things just get worse and worse as we’ve been seeing at Harvard, especially in the days since Oct. 7.” The incident involves alleged discrimination and harassment of Jewish Israeli students Amnon Shefler, Gilad Neumann and Matan Yaffe, which took place in professor Marshall Ganz’s “Organizing: People, Power, Change” course last spring. All three students have been called up for Israel Defense Forces reserve duty and were not available for comment. According to the Brandeis Center, “the students decided to work together on a joint project that would examine ways to ‘to harness and unite a majority of diverse and moderate Israelis to strengthen Israel’s liberal and Jewish democracy.’” “The students articulated their purpose as ‘organizing a growing majority of Israelis…that act in harmony, building on a shared ethos of Israel as a liberal-Jewish-democracy, being a cultural, economic and security lighthouse.’ Professor Ganz dismissed their project as illegitimate, demanded they change it, and subjected them to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias and discrimination when they refused,” the letter continues. According to the complaint, Ganz told the students they could not use the term “Jewish democracy” to describe Israel – stating that using the words “Jewish” and “democracy” in regard to the Jewish state was akin to a project promoting white supremacy. When the students decided to stick with their project as designed, Ganz threatened them with academic consequences. “Professor Ganz admitted he had never told students in any other class that they could not present their work, even when it centered on controversial topics. During the final class, two of Ganz’s teaching fellows taught a lesson on how to recruit support for Palestinians,” the letter said, noting that while the topic itself was not objectionable, “it led to students making hostile claims, inaccurate characterizations and false accusations against Israel and Israelis. Ganz refused to let the Israeli students provide a response or any counter-arguments to the wildly inaccurate data presented.” The Brandeis Center’s initial complaint to the university was sent in March. In response, Harvard launched a third-party-investigation, which agreed with the Brandeis Center and concluded that “Ganz subjected the students to anti-Israel and antisemitic bias and discrimination on the basis of their identities as Jewish Israelis, silenced the speech of the Jewish Israeli students about a topic he viewed as illegitimate, treated the students differently and denigrated them on the basis of their Israeli national origin and Jewish ethnicity and ancestry, and prioritized others’ concerns over the Israeli students.” Marcus said that the investigator made “fairly strong recommendations,” adding that he would have made “even stronger recommendations,” but was “happily surprised since investigators paid by colleges and universities seldom are as firm as this.” According to the Brandeis Center, the investigator concluded that Ganz’s conduct violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires schools that receive federal funding to respond immediately to discrimination and/or harassment that “negatively affect[s] the ability and willingness of Jewish students to participate fully in the school’s education programs and activities.” Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf pledged to address the problem, asking for time over the summer to do so, Marcus said, adding that ultimately, his plan was “an apology and unspecified personnel actions,” which Marcus called “deeply disappointing.” Four months later, the Brandeis Center said that “not only has there been no action to address the anti-Semitism, Harvard is now publicly touting Ganz, who continues to teach there, as a civil rights hero. The latest edition of the Harvard Gazette esteems Ganz’s early civil rights work, leaving out mention of the antisemitic conduct.” “Harvard, it seems, has no genuine intent to address the anti-Semitism on its campus, choosing instead to publicly celebrate a professor who recently subjected Jewish and Israeli students to bias and discrimination,” the letter sent on Monday states. In July, amid the White House’s rollout of a national strategy to combat antisemitism, the issue was addressed in the Knesset by American Jewish leaders and Israelis studying in the U.S. One of the Israeli students who spoke at the hearing was Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, the former deputy military secretary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also served as the IDF international spokesperson and as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force. Shefler was studying at Harvard while still in the military on leave and mentioned the Ganz case when describing the struggles he and other Israeli students faced in their classes. The Brandeis Center is demanding that Harvard “fulfill the commitment it made to address Ganz’s discrimination, and eliminate the hostile environment that is snowballing on its campus, as it is required under Title VI.” It specifically calls on Harvard “to commit to university-wide changes, including requiring all faculty and staff to undergo training on anti-Semitism, including understanding that expressing support for the Jewish homeland is a sincere and deeply felt expression of Jewish ethnic and ancestral identity as well as the Jewish religion. The training also must help faculty and staff recognize when anti-Semitism directed at Jewish ethnicity is a concerted strategy to marginalize Jewish students on campus and make them feel unwelcome.” Earlier this month, the Wexner Foundation cut ties with Harvard over “the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists [on Oct.7].” More than 250 Israelis have graduated from the long-standing and prestigious Wexner Foundation Fellowship, which includes a period of study at Harvard’s Kennedy School. These alumni have often gone on to hold high-ranking positions in the Israeli civil service and in government, including Knesset members, Israel Defense Forces generals, top state prosecutors and others. A letter from the foundation to the Harvard Board of Overseers severing ties said that many Israel fellows “feel abandoned” by the university. Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife, Batia, also announced they are quitting Harvard’s Kennedy executive board in protest over how university leaders have responded to the massacre.
Washington, D.C. (October 30, 2023): In response to a complaint from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, made public for the first time today, Harvard University found that a professor at its Kennedy School discriminated against three Jewish Israeli graduate students in violation of Harvard and Kennedy School policies and federal civil rights guidance under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After more than four months, however, not only has Harvard failed to address the anti-Semitism, the school is now publicly touting the professor as a civil rights hero. The Brandeis Center today sent a strongly-wordedlegal warning to the University’s general counsel, demanding the school take the prompt action it is required under the law. “This failure, on top of other failures of leadership, have set the stage for the worsening climate that we have seen for Jewish Harvard students since [Oct. 7],” wrote the Brandeis Center, referring to numerous events of late, including the support more than 30 Harvard student groups recently expressed for Hamas, rallies attended by students and faculty celebrating Hamas’ barbaric acts, the posting of Hamas paratrooper images to intimidate Jewish students, and the university’s own equating of Hamas terrorists and the IDF. “Harvard’s failure to speak out against anti-Semitism masked as anti-Zionism has only emboldened the student groups who are now celebrating Hamas’ atrocities. The silence needs to end.” Part of the “silence” the Brandeis Center is referring to involves the discrimination and harassment of three Jewish Israeli students, Amnon Shefler, Gilad Neumann, and Matan Yaffe, which took place in Professor Marshall Ganz’s “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” course over this past spring. The students decided to work together on a joint project that would examine ways to “to harness and unite a majority of diverse and moderate Israelis to strengthen Israel’s liberal and Jewish democracy” at a time of division and social strife within their country. The students articulated their purpose as “organizing a growing majority of Israelis…that act in harmony, building on a shared ethos of Israel as a liberal-Jewish-democracy, being a cultural, economic and security lighthouse.” Professor Ganz dismissed their project as illegitimate, demanded they change it, and subjected them to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias and discrimination when they refused. Specifically, Ganz told the students they could not use the term “Jewish democracy” as a descriptor for Israel. Ganz demanded they eliminate “Jewish” and “democracy” from their project’s stated purpose, stating that an organizing project to promote Jewish democracy was akin to a project promoting white supremacy. When the students decided to stick with their project as designed, Ganz threatened them with consequences. Professor Ganz admitted he had never told students in any other class that they could not present their work, even when it centered on controversial topics. During the final class, two of Ganz’s teaching fellows taught a lesson on how to recruit support for Palestinians. While the topic itself was not objectionable, it led to students making hostile claims, inaccurate characterizations and false accusations against Israel and Israelis. Ganz refused to let the Israeli students provide a response or any counter arguments to the wildly inaccurate data presented. After the Brandeis Center sent a complaint to the university, this past March, Harvard launched a third-party-investigation, which agreed with the Brandeis Center and concluded Ganz subjected the students to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias and discrimination on the basis of their identities as Jewish Israelis, silenced the speech of the Jewish Israeli students about a topic he viewed as illegitimate, treated the students differently and denigrated them on the basis of their Israeli national origin and Jewish ethnicity and ancestry, and prioritized others’ concerns over the Israeli students. The investigator also concluded that Ganz’s conduct interfered with and limited the students’ ability to participate in and benefit from Harvard Kennedy School’s educational program, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires schools that receive federal funding to respond immediately to discrimination and/or harassment that “negatively affect[s] the ability and willingness of Jewish students to participate fully in the school’s education programs and activities.” A university “must take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate any hostile environment, and prevent the harassment from recurring.” While Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf promptly accepted the investigator’s findings as final and committed to addressing the harassment and discrimination, stating “[w]e need to ensure that the School fulfills these commitments and that the violations of policies that occurred this spring are addressed fully and do not recur,” four months later, not only has there been no action to address the anti-Semitism, Harvard is now publicly touting Ganz, who continues to teach there, as a civil rights hero. The latest edition of the Harvard Gazette vaunts Ganz’s early civil rights work, making no mention of his recent dishonorable conduct. “The professor is no civil rights champion when it comes to minorities he personally finds distasteful, namely, Jewish Israelis. He is in fact a civil rights violator, who undisputedly trampled the rights of members of his class without hesitation or apology, denigrating the Students’ identity and preventing them from participating fully in his class,” wrote the Brandeis Center. “Harvard, it seems, has no genuine intent to address the anti-Semitism on its campus, choosing instead to publicly celebrate a professor who recently subjected Jewish and Israeli students to bias and discrimination.” The Brandeis Center demands Harvard fulfill the commitment it made to address Ganz’s discrimination, and eliminate the hostile environment that is snowballing on its campus, as it is required under Title VI. Specifically the Brandeis Center calls on Harvard to commit to university-wide changes, including requiring all faculty and staff to undergo training on anti-Semitism, including understanding that expressing support for the Jewish homeland is a sincere and deeply felt expression of Jewish ethnic and ancestral identity as well as the Jewish religion. The training also must help faculty and staff recognize when anti-Semitism directed at Jewish ethnicity is a concerted strategy to marginalize Jewish students on campus and make them feel unwelcome. The Brandeis Center also demands Harvard publicly acknowledge and renounce Ganz’s discrimination and harassment of Israeli Jews and take steps to ensure he and all professors treat Israeli and Jewish students with the same level of respect accorded others. “Harvard leadership has allowed its campus to run amuck with anti-Semitism for far too long. This outrageous, irresponsible and illegal failure of Harvard’s administration to address even undisputed anti-Semitism has paved the way for the problems they are now facing,” stated Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for the Bush and Trump Administrations. “It is high time the university provides the leadership it is required under the law.” To view a PDF of this press release, click here.