The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a federal lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Thursday, alleging that the university has failed to address what it described as a pervasive and escalating climate of antisemitism following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on behalf of Jewish students, faculty, and researchers, the complaint accuses MIT of allowing a hostile environment to take root on its campus, where pro-Hamas protests allegedly crossed the line into antisemitic harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence.
According to the lawsuit, MIT students celebrated the October 7 attack, chanted slogans perceived as calling for violence against Jews, distributed maps marking Jewish campus spaces as targets, and in some cases physically blocked Jewish or Israeli individuals from entering public areas. The complaint also describes incidents of vandalism, including urination on the Hillel building and flyers styled after Hamas paraphernalia being placed under students’ doors.
Today at @MIT, just steps from the Hillel building, a crowd of students cheers a man praising Ham@s, the PFLP, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“You can’t support a people who are fighting back and fail to support those who are putting their lives on the line. So when they say all… pic.twitter.com/w6LQdA6LLv
— Talia Khan (@realtaliakhan) May 2, 2024
One of the most serious allegations centers around a tenured professor in the linguistics department, who the suit claims publicly targeted an Israeli researcher—sharing his military service, name, and image online, and later publishing an article in Le Monde that drew further attention to him. The researcher reportedly received threatening confrontations at his child’s daycare and at grocery stores, prompting him to appeal directly to MIT President Sally Kornbluth. The complaint alleges that President Kornbluth did not respond.
The same professor is also accused of harassing a Jewish student by email, copying senior administrators on messages in which he accused the student of having a “Jewish mind infection” and threatened to use him as a classroom case study. The student ultimately withdrew from MIT, citing fear for his safety and an inability to complete his Ph.D.
“These events are not isolated,” the Brandeis Center said in a statement. “They represent a broader failure by MIT leadership to uphold its legal obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires federally funded institutions to ensure a safe learning environment for all students—including Jewish and Israeli students.”
