It appears that Harvard might be joining the University of Pennsylvania in finding out that allowing antisemitism to run rampant on its campus is an expensive mistake. Harvard is now facing a lawsuit from Jewish students alleging that the school has refused to take action against the surge of anti-Jewish bigotry in its halls.

At the heart of the lawsuit, which was filed in Boston’s federal court, is the accusation that Harvard deliberately neglected to implement policies that would protest Jewish students from antisemitic groups on campus.

The filing asserts that Harvard “has become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment,” and that “mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Harvard’s campus shouting vile antisemitic slogans and calling for death to Jews and Israel.”

The plaintiffs also accuse the university of showing bias in how it enforces its policies.

Harvard selectively enforces its policies to avoid protecting Jewish students from harassment, hires professors who support anti-Jewish violence and spread antisemitic propaganda, and ignores Jewish students’ pleas for protection. Those professors teach and advocate through a binary oppressor-oppressed lens, through which Jews, one of history’s most persecuted peoples, are typically designated “oppressor,” and therefore unworthy of support or sympathy. Harvard permits students and faculty to advocate, without consequence, the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish country in the world. Meanwhile, Harvard requires students to take a training class that warns that they will be disciplined if they engage in sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia, or other disfavored behavior.

In a reference to comments made by former Harvard president Claudine Gay, the plaintiffs note that she insisted that “calls for the genocide of the Jewish people do not necessarily violate Harvard’s policies and then received the unanimous backing of Harvard’s governing body.”

The lawsuit centers on allegations that the university “abjectly failed to enforce its policies and discipline those responsible for turning Harvard’s campus into a severely hostile environment.”

Lastly, the lawsuit argues that Harvard’s refusal to address anti-Jewish bigotry “constitutes an egregious violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

The lawsuit comes amid heightened tensions stemming from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which started on October 7, 2023. The lawsuit notes a notable escalation in antisemitic incidents on campus, which have included calls for genocide and threats of violence against Jewish students.

Universities like Harvard and others have been accused of following a double standard in their responses to the rise of antisemitism. During testimony in front of Congress, Gay and other elite university presidents insisted that antisemitic speech does not violate its rules regarding harassment – even if they include calls for the eradication of the Jewish people.

The students involved in the lawsuit are not only seeking compensatory and punitive damages; they are also demanding systemic changes in how the university handles bigotry. They wish to see Harvard enforcing its policies against antisemitism, including expulsion of those who engage in such behavior. They also want the schools to review its admissions policies and curriculum to ensure it is not promoting anti-Jewish ideologies.

This could be the first in a long series of lawsuits filed against elite institutions that choose to protect those advocating for terrorist groups like Hamas while calling for the elimination of the Jewish people. While these institutions insist they are defending free speech, there is reason for doubt given their obvious political bias. Nevertheless, those seeking legal remedies might push the universities to change, especially if the leadership decides they favor their pocketbook over ideology.