Jewish students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) filed a federal lawsuit last week alleging the prestigious Cambridge institution has failed to take any meaningful action to stop the "spreading wildfire of antisemitism, including antisemitic conduct" in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice (SCLJ) and two MIT students filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts District Court describing how MIT allegedly turns a blind eye to "hateful antisemitic discrimination and harassment" on its campus, refuses to enforce policies to protect Jewish and Israeli students and faculty, and has thereby created a hostile environment for Jews.
"In enabling this discriminatory conduct, MIT has directly and intentionally contributed to a pervasively hostile campus environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and breached its duties to Plaintiffs, to its other Jewish students, to its Israeli students, and, indeed, to the entire MIT campus community," the complaint says. "Any alleged ‘action’ taken by MIT in response to discriminatory and harassing speech and conduct was not designed to have any meaningful impact in stopping the spreading wildfire of antisemitism, including antisemitic conduct."
Fox News Digital has reached out to MIT for comment on the lawsuit.
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The new lawsuit calls on MIT to implement "comprehensive, meaningful remedial measures," including terminating administrators, professors, or other university employees or staff "responsible for the antisemitic abuse permeating the school," as well as suspending or expelling students and student groups, and to communicate broadly that MIT will "condemn, investigate and punish any conduct that discriminates against or harasses members of the Jewish community."
As a result of MIT’s "blatant and intentional disregard for its legal obligations to its students, Plaintiffs and other students have suffered injury, including in their educational experience," the lawsuit says.
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The complaint alleges that Jewish professors reported incidents where MIT students disrupted the academic environment and intimidated faculty by yelling outside their offices while rattling the doors. One professor described incidents where Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending a class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students.
Jewish students attested that rather than dispersing antisemitic mobs on campus, MIT warned Jewish students to steer clear of certain areas – effectively sending Jewish and Israeli students underground at their own university – with no repercussions for the students violating school policies and creating an unsafe environment for Jewish students, according to the complaint.
In a statement to the Boston Herald on Friday, an MIT spokesperson said, "We have not been served with the complaint and MIT does not, as a typical practice, comment on pending litigation. Generally, we’d note MIT has established processes in place to address concerns of discrimination and harassment."
A group of Harvard students already sued their university last month over what they described as "severe and pervasive" antisemitism on campus. And the House Committee on Education and the Workforce continues its investigations into MIT, Harvard, UPenn and other schools after antisemitism hit a fever pitch on American college campuses in the wake of Oct. 7.
On Friday, the committee's chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., wrote to MIT President Sally Kornbluth and MIT Corporation Chair Mark P. Gorenberg asking them to produce a trove of documents regarding "pervasive" antisemitism following "numerous deeply troubling incidents and developments" at the university.
Kornbluth – along with now-former Harvard President Claudine Gay and now-former UPenn President Liz Magill – received strong rebukes over their testimonies before the House Education and Workforce Committee in December in which the trio, in the name of free speech, failed to condemn outright calls for intifada, or the genocide of Jews, on their perspective campuses. Months later, only Kornbluth keeps her job as president. Magill stepped down as president amid the criticism, while Gay later too resigned, also amid a plagiarism scandal.
