By: Ariella Haviv – Jewish Voice News

Harvard University has urged a federal court to grant its second and final motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former graduate student Yoav Segev, who says the university failed — willfully and systematically — to discipline students and faculty who harassed him because he is Jewish. The motion, filed late last week, intensifies one of the most closely watched civil rights cases in American higher education, a case that has become emblematic of what The Algemeiner described in a report on Monday as a climate of escalating hostility toward Jewish students across elite campuses since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

Harvard’s newest filing, which follows an initial October motion insisting that Segev’s claims lack legal foundation, argues that the school’s alleged misconduct does not meet the threshold for judicial intervention. According to the university, Segev objected to policy decisions, not discriminatory treatment, and suffered no legally cognizable harm. But Segev’s attorneys have called the argument morally bankrupt, accusing the university of attempting to bury — not refute — the allegations. In their Nov. 17 response, they wrote that Harvard’s strategy amounts to a “morally indefensible” effort to suppress the truth of antisemitic harassment that the administration allegedly allowed to fester unchecked.

At the center of the lawsuit is a now-infamous incident from October 2023, documented in a widely circulated video obtained by The Algemeiner and other outlets. In the footage, Segev is surrounded by a coordinated group of pro-Hamas activists led by students Ibrahim Bharmal and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, who stalked him across Harvard Yard. Once they encircled him, dozens screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” while shoving keffiyehs into his face. Segev can be seen trying — unsuccessfully — to break free from the crush of bodies pressing against him. The scene became a symbol of the unchecked extremism taking root on university campuses, and The Algemeiner reported on how Jewish students increasingly feared for their safety after the attack.

In its latest filing, Harvard urges the court to disregard Segev’s depiction of the incident as part of a broader antisemitic pattern. According to the university, Segev’s complaint “does not attempt to explain how the facts alleged about that single, short-lived event — shouting and some brief instances of non-injurious physical contact — could be vile enough to have a systemic effect on his education experience.” Harvard also contends that claims about ongoing harassment or broader campus hostility fall outside the scope of Segev’s personal experience. The university accuses him of relying on unrelated incidents at Harvard and other schools simply because he “is a member of Harvard’s Jewish community.”

Segev’s attorneys countered that the harassment did not exist in isolation and that Harvard’s dismissal of it is evidence of the very indifference that fueled its spread. As they wrote in their memorandum: “The harassment also came from Harvard faculty, who publicly blamed Mr. Segev because his presence, as a Jew, was somehow ‘frightening’ to other students. This pervasive harassment also includes Harvard mistreating and misleading Mr. Segev to deny him a fair process while protecting and rewarding his attackers.”

They added that Harvard’s response was not merely passive but actively deceptive — that administrators misled Segev about investigative processes, shielded those responsible, and demonstrated a “callous disregard for the safety and dignity of Jewish students.”

One of the most striking details in Segev’s complaint is that the students who harassed him have since been rewarded with prestigious opportunities — rather than facing discipline or accountability.

Bharmal, described in the lawsuit as one of the ringleaders of the mob, secured a law clerkship with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, a taxpayer-funded agency that provides legal defense for those accused of serious crimes. The Algemeiner also reported that Bharmal received a $65,000 fellowship from Harvard Law School to work for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization whose leadership has repeatedly defended Hamas’s atrocities on Oct. 7 and dismissed Israeli accounts of mass murder, rape, and torture.

Tettey-Tamaklo, also identified as a leader of the mob, graduated from Harvard Divinity School with honors, according to The Free Press, and was selected by Harvard to serve as a class marshal — an honorary role typically reserved for graduates who exemplify the institution’s highest ideals. He now works as a Harvard teaching fellow. As The Algemeiner report observed, these accolades draw attention to what many Jewish students have long alleged: that the university’s disciplinary processes function unevenly, protecting activists aligned with fashionable ideological causes while ignoring — or even enabling — harassment of its Jewish minority.

Harvard’s relationship with the Jewish community has been the subject of national scrutiny since the weeks following Oct. 7, 2023, when some students publicly celebrated Hamas’s kidnapping, torture, and murder of Israeli civilians. As The Algemeiner report detailed, student groups issued statements blaming Israel entirely for the massacre, faculty posted antisemitic cartoons on official departmental channels, and activists stormed buildings chanting “globalize the intifada,” a euphemism widely understood to call for violence against Jews globally.

As antisemitic rhetoric proliferated, Jewish students complained of hostile classroom environments, vandalism, intimidation, and administrative indifference. Harvard’s former president Claudine Gay — who later resigned in disgrace — infamously refused during a congressional hearing to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates campus policy. The episode became emblematic of elite universities’ moral disarray.

In the two years since the Segev incident, Harvard has attempted to rehabilitate its image, particularly after the 2024 presidential election that saw the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The university settled several civil rights complaints filed by Jewish students, agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, and shut down several far-left initiatives accused of cultivating anti-Zionist extremism.

Most notably, Harvard announced a set of new partnerships with Israeli institutions, including a study-abroad program with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a postdoctoral fellowship for Israeli biomedical scientists at Harvard Medical School. Vice provost for international affairs Mark Elliot told The Harvard Crimson that these decisions were not symbolic gestures but a continuation of longstanding academic partnerships — a framing that many observers have called overly optimistic given the hostile climate that preceded them.

Harvard’s central argument is that Segev is trying to turn a “short-lived” protest confrontation into a civil rights claim. But Segev’s attorneys insist the case is about far more: a dangerous, institution-wide refusal to protect its Jewish population.

They argue that Harvard’s policies were not neutrally applied, but selectively enforced in ways that emboldened antisemitic actors. According to the complaint, Harvard not only failed to discipline students who harassed Segev — it rewarded them, held back information, and minimized Jewish safety concerns in ways that directly contradicted its obligations under federal civil rights statutes.

They also argue that Harvard’s position ignores the lived reality of Jewish students during a period in which antisemitic speech, harassment, and physical intimidation became commonplace. As The Algemeiner documented in real time, Jewish students were spit on, shoved, excluded from organizations, and publicly vilified by peers and even faculty.

The Segev case is being closely watched because it represents a larger national question: Can universities be held legally accountable for refusing to protect Jewish students from ideologically motivated harassment, especially when the harassment overlaps with anti-Israel activism?

Harvard’s attempt to dismiss the case reflects a broader tendency among elite universities to portray antisemitism complaints as policy disagreements or political misunderstandings. But lawmakers, alumni, donors, and advocacy groups increasingly view such cases as civil rights violations — particularly when the harassment is tied to religious or ethnic identity rather than political views.

If the court refuses Harvard’s motion to dismiss, it could open the door to a wave of litigation across higher education, forcing universities to reckon with antisemitism in ways that internal committees and campus task forces have consistently failed to do.

Even if Harvard succeeds in dismissing the lawsuit, the reputational damage endures. As The Algemeiner reported, Harvard’s name has become synonymous with intellectual hypocrisy in the face of rising antisemitism. Its promises of reform — while welcomed by some — are widely interpreted as reactive measures taken under pressure, not moral initiatives born of institutional conviction.

The Segev lawsuit therefore becomes more than a legal dispute. It is a referendum on Harvard’s character, its values, and whether its leadership is capable of acknowledging a problem that Jewish students say has been festering for years.

As Segev’s attorneys argued, “The problem is not a single incident, but a systemic failure.” And if that is true, no motion to dismiss — no matter how strategic — will absolve Harvard in the court of public opinion.