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George A. O’Toole Jr., a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, granted Harvard’s motion to dismiss.
“The plaintiffs are 10 Harvard alumni, who graduated between 1973 and 1996. They had previously donated monetary contributions to Harvard. They have brought this action against the defendants seeking monetary and equitable relief,” the judge wrote.
“What apparently has motivated them to bring this action was Harvard’s alleged failure to sufficiently address antisemitism at Harvard, especially following the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023,” O’Toole added.
The judge noted that the alumni sought an induction requiring Harvard to “take affirmative steps to end antisemitism on its campus, restitution for the plaintiffs’ tuition payments and subsequent monetary donations to Harvard and damages for the purported devaluation of and reputational damage to their Harvard degrees.”
O’Toole wrote that the alumni are neither current students nor current Harvard employees.
“They graduated from Harvard many years before the central events referred to in the complaint,” he wrote. “They are not themselves directly affected by Harvard’s recent administrative actions and/or omissions, and consequently they have no cognizable legal injury that could be redressed through this suit.”
Six Jewish students sued Harvard in January 2024 alleging a hostile, antisemitic environment in violation of civil-rights law.
