Harvard settles lawsuits over antisemitism on campus

Among other commitments, university to adopt International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, report its responses to harassment for next five years

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel supporters gather for a rally at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel supporters gather for a rally at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)

Harvard University has agreed to provide additional protections for Jewish students to settle two lawsuits accusing the Ivy League school of becoming a hotbed of rampant antisemitism.

Under a settlement announced on Tuesday, Harvard will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism when evaluating whether alleged discrimination or harassment violates the university’s non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies.

Harvard will also post online a Frequently Asked Questions document related to those policies, report annually for five years on its responses to discrimination or harassment, and provide expert training on combating antisemitism to staff who review discrimination complaints.

It will also form an official partnership with a university in Israel, the school newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported. Anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian groups have urged the university to sever ties with Israeli institutes.

“Today’s settlement reflects Harvard’s enduring commitment to ensuring our Jewish students, faculty, and staff are embraced, respected, and supported,” the university said in a statement cited by the Crimson.

In May “pro-Israeli affiliates” pressed Harvard President Alan Garber to embrace the IHRA definition, the report said.

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters gather at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso / AFP)

As part of the settlement, Harvard declared that it will follow the IHRA example that it is antisemitic to describe Israel as a “racist endeavor” or comparing its policies to that of the Nazis, according to the Crimson.

Both lawsuits accused Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars federal funds recipients from allowing discrimination based on race, religion and national origin.

The lawsuits were among many accusing major universities of encouraging antisemitism after war broke out in Gaza in October 2023 between Israel and Hamas when the Palestinian terror group led a devastating attack on Israel.

The settlements include unspecified monetary terms. Harvard did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

Students Against Antisemitism, a Harvard group, sued last January, accusing Harvard of selectively enforcing its anti-discrimination policies to avoid protecting Jewish students from harassment, ignoring their pleas for protection, and hiring professors who supported anti-Jewish violence and spread antisemitic propaganda.

The Harvard lawsuit was filed eight days after the university’s former president Claudine Gay resigned after coming under fire for her handling of antisemitism following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response. Gay also faced plagiarism allegations.

Then in June, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education filed another lawsuit accusing the university of ignoring campus antisemitism.

Illustrative: Students protesting against the war in Gaza, and passersby walking through Harvard Yard, are seen next to the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Harvard sought to have both lawsuits dismissed but US District Judge Richard Stearns in August and November rulings, allowed the lawsuits to proceed.

The lead plaintiff in the SAA lawsuit, Shabbos Kestenbaum, has refused to accept the settlement and intends to continue litigation on his own, the Crimson reported.

Many US colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism on their campuses have been settling with federal civil rights investigators in the weeks before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday, who has urged a tougher response to campus protests against the war in Gaza.

Massive anti-Israel protests erupted at universities across the US following the Hamas October 7, 2023, attack, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages. Demonstrators chanted pro-Palestinian slogans like “Free Palestine,” but protesters at some universities also called for an intifada — a word used to describe two periods of unrest in Israel that were characterized by constant terror attacks — or called for another “1,000 October 7ths.”

In June last year, Harvard task forces on antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias each concluded that the campus was beset by discrimination and harassment, with reports of intolerance toward people with pro-Palestinian as well as pro-Israel views.

The antisemitism task force called for measures including anti-harassment training for students and for steps to ensure a “welcoming environment” for religiously observant Jewish students.

Meanwhile, the task force on anti-Muslim bias recommended measures including steps to prevent the “doxxing” of students who support the Palestinian people, and clarification of school policies toward bullying and bias.

A passerby walks past tents at an anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian encampment of students in Harvard Yard, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — whose definition of antisemitism Harvard agreed to adopt under the settlement — is an international network of academics, museum heads and nonprofit leaders from 34 countries that promotes Holocaust research and education.

In 2016, facing rising antisemitism around the world, the alliance drafted a definition of antisemitism that was aimed at helping countries, institutions and organizations recognize when it was taking place, and monitor and record it. The IHRA definition was based on an earlier one formulated in 2005 by a European Union agency.

Some 28 countries — mostly in Europe — have adopted the definition to help them determine what constitutes antisemitism.

In 2019 when US President Donald Trump signed an executive order essentially adopting the working definition as a reference for adjudicating civil rights complaints on campus.

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