Jewish Students Sue University of Pennsylvania, Allege Civil Rights Violations Amid Rampant Campus Antisemitism

Two Jewish students have sued the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), alleging that the school violated their civil rights by “selectively” enforcing rules that would punish those who harass and intimidate Jewish students, hiring radical anti-Zionist professors, and fostering a hostile learning environment.

“The harassment and discrimination on campus and in the classroom is intolerable,” said the complaint, filed on behalf of plaintiffs Eyal Yakoby and Jordan Davis in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “Plaintiffs and their Jewish peers are routinely subjected to vile and threatening antisemitic slurs and chants such as ‘intifada revolution,’ ‘from the river to the sea,’ ‘F—k the Jews,’ ‘the Jews deserve everything that is happening to them,’ you are a dirty Jew, don’t look at us,’ ‘keep walking you dirty little Jews,’ ‘get out of here k—kes,’ and go back to where you came from.'”

The complaint, viewed by The Algemeiner, alleges that antisemitism at Penn is an “institutional problem” that has been worsening for many years but became acute in September, when the school hosted an anti-Zionist festival that featured several speakers who called for violence against israel and were accused of promoting antisemitic conspiracies. For weeks, the school would not condemn the event, and Penn president Elizabeth Magill recently apologized for not doing so — after it took place.

“Incredibly, Penn’s administration did not just ignore students’ pleas to distance itself from the festival and antisemitic speakers invited to attend but also thumbed its nose at the pleas of Penn’s own trustees and alumni,” the complaint continued. “The antisemitic speakers at the festival lived up to their reputations, inveighing against ‘Jewish supremacism’ and the ‘messianic mindset’ of ‘religious Jews’ who are willing to ‘put up with anything to take over more land.'”

Antisemitic episodes on campus skyrocketed after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, with both students and faculty calling for Israel’s destruction and harassing Jewish members of the campus community. However, the complaint noted, such incidents were hardly new.

In 2018, for example, Penn granted a pro-boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) group permission to hold a “teach-in” on campus. In 2019, a group of Penn Law students accused the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of wielding undue influence on school policy and lodging false charges of antisemitism against anti-Zionists with the aim of “hindering our ability to have a balanced conversation about Israel.” In 2020, a professor forced students to take a “privilege quiz” in which Judaism was “ranked as the most privileged” identity category. In 2021, during Israel’s last war with Hamas, Penn’s Center and Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies issued a statement accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and called for the destruction of the Jewish state.

This March, the anti-Zionist group Penn Against the Occupation (POA) hosted Mohammed El-Kurd during its “Israeli Apartheid Week.” Currently a columnist for the left-wing magazine The Nation, the 25-year-old el-Kurd has trafficked in antisemitic tropes, demonized Zionism, and falsely accused Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians. Over the past two years he has widely toured across American university campuses, heightening concerns about rising antisemitism and harassment against pro-Israel students.

On Oct. 7, as scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting children and desecrating dead bodies in Israel circulated worldwide, POA members held an “Emergency Solidarity Rally” where one of its members congratulated Hamas on a “job well done.” According to the complaint, the student said, “When they woke up in the morning, and they found the field hands in the house, with a knife, ready to cut their f—king throats. I was late to the news but when I heard it, I smiled. I don’t want to hear that bulls—t, 250, 250, innocent Israelis are dead. F—k ’em. Again, I swear, I salute Hamas.” In the ensuing days, Penn professor Anne Norton said on social media that she was “ashamed” of former US President Barack Obama for condemning Hamas.

The lawsuit went on to recount numerous incidents of alleged harassment, vandalism, and intimidation, concluding that Penn “has failed to fact or has acted with leniency and/or delay in applying its policies when a known or reported incident involved antisemitism or where the victim was a Jewish or Israeli student, including plaintiffs.”

The student are demanding a jury trial and payment for “substantial damages” they have incurred. They are being represented by the Law Offices of Eric A. Shore, P.C. and Kasowitz, Benson, and Torres LLP.

News of the lawsuit came amid a wave of criticism that hit Magill after she evaded answering whether calling for the genocide of Jews on the school’s campus constituted a violation of its code of conduct during a hearing on campus antisemitism held by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday.

“It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman,” Magill said, responding to US Rep. Elise Stefanik (D-NY), who posed the question. “If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.”

“Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide?” Stefanik asked, visibly disturbed by Magill’s answer. “The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable Ms. Magill.”

On Wednesday, Magill apologized.

“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the US Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” she said in a video posted on X/Twitter. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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