(TJV NEWS) In a sweeping federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law accused the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of fostering an environment of pervasive anti-Semitism, failing to protect Jewish students, and violating federal civil rights law. The complaint, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, represents one of the most forceful legal actions to date against an elite academic institution over its response to anti-Semitic harassment following the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of Jewish students, faculty, and researchers, alleges that MIT’s leadership—particularly President Sally Kornbluth—repeatedly failed to act in the face of escalating harassment, intimidation, and threats targeting members of the Jewish and Israeli campus community.

As the Brandeis Center asserted, the case “epitomizes institutional betrayal,” accusing the university not only of failing to act but of emboldening hostility through willful silence.

According to the lawsuit, MIT became a “breeding ground for hatred” in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, during which over 1,200 Israelis, primarily civilians, were massacred. The Brandeis Center details disturbing allegations: students celebrating Hamas’s atrocities, calls for global violence against Jews, public chants interrupting lectures, the urination on the campus Hillel building, and the distribution of so-called “terror maps” that marked Jewish campus locations as targets.

In what the plaintiffs describe as a pattern of unchecked extremism, Jewish and Israeli students were reportedly blocked from entering campus buildings and made to feel physically unsafe. According to the complaint, these threats occurred “in every corner of campus life, with no intervention from administrators.”

One of the most egregious allegations centers on a tenured linguistics professor who, beginning in 2024, allegedly waged a sustained campaign of harassment against an Israeli postdoctoral researcher. The professor is accused of doxxing the researcher—posting his name, military service (a legal obligation in Israel), and photo online, editing and disseminating videos across social media platforms, and even tagging Al Jazeera, further amplifying the exposure.

The professor’s actions, according to the suit, culminated in an op-ed published in the French newspaper Le Monde, where he vilified the Israeli researcher. Following the article’s publication, the researcher was reportedly confronted by strangers, including at his child’s daycare and in grocery stores. Repeated pleas for assistance—most notably an email to President Kornbluth expressing fear for his family’s safety and requesting the takedown of the threatening material—went unanswered.

The Brandeis Center argued that the administration’s silence served not only as institutional neglect, but as tacit approval, enabling the professor to escalate his actions.

Later that same year, the same professor allegedly began targeting a Jewish student, in full view of MIT’s senior administration. According to the lawsuit, the professor issued a barrage of departmental emails—copying President Kornbluth—accusing the student of having a “Jewish mind infection” and threatening to use him as a “real-life case study” in an academic course.

That same evening, threatening flyers mimicking Hamas headband designs were slipped under dormitory doors, naming the student and calling for violence. The student ultimately left MIT before completing his PhD in computer science, walking away from years of research and a career he had long envisioned.

“This is a textbook example of neglect and indifference,” said Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and a former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. “The very people who are tasked with protecting students are not only failing them, but are the ones attacking them.”

Marcus noted that under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, MIT—as a recipient of federal funds—is legally obligated to provide a safe, non-discriminatory learning environment. “To eradicate hate from campuses, we must hold faculty and university administrators responsible for their participation in—and in this case, their proliferation of—anti-Semitism and abuse,” he added.

White & Case, a global law firm, is co-counsel on the case, reflecting the high legal stakes and growing national concern about the treatment of Jewish students in U.S. higher education.

The lawsuit against MIT comes amid a series of legal and federal actions spurred by Brandeis Center complaints. In a landmark settlement earlier this year, Harvard University agreed to a set of sweeping reforms: the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, explicit protections for Zionist students, and the inclusion of anti-Zionist harassment as a violation of anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies.

As the Brandeis Center emphasized in its announcement of the MIT suit, “What was achieved at Harvard is not a one-off. It is the beginning of a new chapter in protecting Jewish students across the country.”

Indeed, the Department of Education is currently investigating Brandeis Center complaints filed against the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Yale University, American University in Washington, D.C., Scripps College in California, and the Fulton County School District in Georgia.

As universities wrestle with rising campus unrest and surging incidents of anti-Semitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the lawsuit against MIT signals a critical legal and moral turning point. The Brandeis Center argues that academic freedom must never be used as a shield for faculty members who actively incite hatred, nor can institutional neutrality be invoked to justify silence in the face of violence and intimidation.

For MIT, long regarded as one of the world’s premier institutions of science and innovation, the lawsuit may well determine not just legal liability—but its broader reputation for moral leadership in a time of mounting crisis.

As Marcus told reporters: “No student should be forced to choose between their Jewish identity and their education.” The outcome of this case, and others like it, will determine whether that principle remains aspirational—or enforceable by law.