MIT Defeats Suit Over Its Response to Antisemitism on Campus

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology persuaded a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the school failed to tamp down on antisemitism on its campus after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

The case came in the wake of similar suits and protests against Ivy League schools over their responses to the conflict in the Middle East.

The students who sued didn’t sufficiently plead a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Judge Richard G. Stearns of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts said Tuesday, granting MIT’s motion to dismiss.

“To fault MIT for what proved to be a failure of clairvoyance and a perhaps too measured response to an outburst of ugliness on its campus would send the unhelpful message that anything less than a faultless response in similar circumstances would earn no positive recognition in the eyes of the law,” Stearns wrote.

The students also didn’t show that MIT failed to prevent the formation of a conspiracy to interfere with students’ civil rights.

The allegations “establish that student groups acted in concert to plan protest events advocating their shared views,” but the complaint doesn’t rouse a “plausible inference that the groups agreed to plan the events ‘at least in part for the very purpose of’ depriving plaintiffs of their civil rights,” Stearns said.

After dismissing the federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state negligence and breach of contract claims.

Pearson Warshaw LLP and others represent the students. Jenner & Block LLP represents MIT.

The case is StandWith Us Ctr. for Legal Justice v Massachusetts Institute of Technology, D. Mass., No. 24-10577, 7/30/24