PHILADELPHIA – Haverford College seeks to dismiss litigation brought by five of its Jewish students who alleged they faced anti-Semitism on campus, for what it feels is the plaintiffs’ failure to state claims upon which relief could be granted.
Jews at Haverford first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on May 13 versus The Corporation of Haverford College. Both parties are of Haverford.
The plaintiffs, Ally Landau and four additional students who filed suit anonymously, have alleged that the private liberal arts school violated students’ civil rights and created a pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students supporting Israel, in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“Haverford has violated Title VI by failing to protect the rights of Jewish Haverford students to participate fully in college classes, programs and activities, without fear of harassment if they express beliefs about Israel that are anything less than eliminationist. In this pervasively hostile environment, Jewish students hide their beliefs, as well as their attendance at religious services or even secular events at which support for the existence of Israel is articulated or defended. While Israel-hating students march across the campus chanting quotes from the terrorist group Hamas calling for Israel’s destruction – as they have done frequently and without any restraint or interference from the Administration – these Jewish students hide in their rooms, feeling unable even to go to class or to engage in any of the other activities that constitute the life of an undergraduate,” the suit said.
“Jewish students whose native tongue is Hebrew fear to and no longer will speak Hebrew in public on campus. Other Jewish students agonize over how to suppress identifiably Jewish proclivities, gestures, or expressions, lest they be exposed as insufficiently Israel-hating Jews. Nearly all of these Jewish students engage in agitated consideration every day about whether, wherever they are going on Haverford’s campus – to class, to the library, to a meal or to meet a friend – they are going to be met with attacks on them and the basic tenets of their religion.”
The suit adds that the college administration has repeatedly permitted this conduct to transpire, at the expense of Jewish students and in support of those holding opposing political and social viewpoints.
Haverford College filed a motion to dismiss the case on July 15, for failure to state claims upon which relief could be granted – and referring to anti-Semitism as “antithetical to the College’s core values.”
“In this lawsuit, plaintiff asserts that the discomfort that its members have felt in the face of their fellow community members’ expression of viewpoints on world events, and in particular about the conflict in Israel and Gaza, is actionable in federal court. It is not. Plaintiff’s claims are grounded in expression its members characterize as anti-Semitic, but not all expression which plaintiff’s members find offensive constitutes unlawful harassment. That is, there is a difference between conduct that offends and conduct that we litigate, a difference intended by Congress and repeatedly affirmed by the Courts. To be sure, those concepts overlap materially, but they are not the same,” the dismissal motion stated, in part.
“As an initial matter, in spite of the case caption and self-styled name, ‘Jews at Haverford’ is very much not all Jews at Haverford. This is not a class action; Plaintiff does not have standing to sue on anyone’s behalf except its members. ‘Jews at Haverford’ asserts its claims in a representative capacity on behalf of five alleged student members: Landau and the anonymous members, who are Jewish and hold specific, pro-Israel views. As such, sweeping about Jewish-identifying Haverfordians at large, or allegations involving unnamed Haverford students without alleging that such students are members of the plaintiff association cannot support plaintiff’s claims.”
The College countered that the plaintiff “cannot point to any right on behalf of its members to have their political views adopted by Haverford’s administration or, conversely, to have the College censor the expression of political views by fellow community members, even if such views may be experienced as hurtful.”
“Plaintiff’s complaint also fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Plaintiff fails to allege that the conduct complained of is actionable under Title VI for at least three reasons. First, the allegations in the complaint demonstrate that the conduct plaintiff complains about is not based on its members’ race, color, or national origin, but instead based on their political views about Israel. Second, the conduct alleged, even if true, does not meet the bar of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment. And third, plaintiff’s allegations make clear that the College’s top administrators actively and repeatedly engaged with students on these issues and Landau’s ability to express her views widely around campus and online, so it is impossible to draw any plausible conclusion that the College was ‘deliberately indifferent’ to any alleged harassment, as it must have been to state a claim under Title VI,” the dismissal motion continued.
“Finally, much like plaintiff’s failure to identify conduct violative of Title VI, it likewise fails to identify any instance in which the College breached any alleged contract with plaintiff’s members. As such, even if this Court finds that plaintiff has established standing, Counts I and II should be dismissed, with prejudice, for failure to state a claim.”
The plaintiff is represented by Jerome M. Marcus of Marcus & Marcus, in Merion Station.
The defendant is represented by Jamie R. Schumacher and Nathan P. Venesky of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, in Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:24-cv-02044
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com