The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, along with co-counsel White & Case LLP, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The complaint accuses the university of “standing idly by as faculty and students cultivated an environment rife with antisemitism and fear.”
Associate Professor Michel DeGraff is named as a defendant in the complaint.
The 71-page filing outlines numerous incidents of severe antisemitism at MIT and claims DeGraff harassed, defamed, and terrorized Jewish members of the university community without consequences. He is also accused of doxxing Dr. Lior Alon, an Israeli professor at MIT.
Alon, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, is one of three plaintiffs, along with the Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Antisemitism and William Sussman.
The complaint alleges Sussman, a former doctoral student and president of MIT Graduate Hillel, left the university due to concerns for his personal safety, which he attributes in part to antisemitic hostility allegedly fueled by DeGraff.
“MIT administrators knowingly failed to take action to eliminate the hostile climate and discrimination against them or to stop the retaliation, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Individual Plaintiffs were also subjected to outrageous and wrongful conduct that has resulted in severe emotional distress and extreme anxiety and anguish. The Individual Plaintiffs were also defamed by a MIT professor,” the complaint states.
The plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial.
Founded in 2011, the Brandeis Center has previously brought successful civil rights cases against Harvard, the University of Southern California, Stanford University, and several other academic institutions on behalf of Jewish students and faculty.