Jewish Student Sues Columbia University Over Antisemitic Harrassment on Campus

Some protesters have gone “well beyond simply engaging in free speech,” said a breach of contract class action (docket 1:24-cv-03232) filed Monday by a second-year Jewish student against Columbia University trustees in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan over protests involving the Israel-Hamas war.

Many individuals at Columbia are exercising their constitutionally protected free speech rights to protest their views about Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but an “extreme element” has “different and menacing goals,” the complaint said. This subset “is not just expressing dissent,” the complaint said: “They have and are continuing to commit acts of violence, they are intimidating and harassing Jewish students and faculty members, they are inciting demonstrators to engage in hate speech and also commit acts of violence, which has been taking place, and they have even called for terrorist attacks” against the U.S. and Israel, it said.

The “calculated acts” are disrupting the “normal functioning” of the university and overshadowing the voices of those engaging in “constitutionally protected speech and protest,” alleged the complaint.

On April 18, the “extreme demonstrators” began occupying a centrally located section of the Columbia campus they dubbed the “Liberated Zone” where they set up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” with over 60 tents, said the complaint. The “extreme element” has “actively blocked Jewish and other students -- by force, harassment, and threats of violence -- who do not share their views from traversing the campus and attending classes,” it said. Despite Columbia’s repeated requests for the encampment to be removed, “they have thus far refused and instead have called for the encampment to grow,” it said.

The encampment has been the center of “round-the-clock harassment of Jewish students, who have been punched, shoved, spat upon, blocked from attending classes and moving freely about campus, and targeted by pro-terrorist hate speech -- both verbal and in written form on massive banners and signs,” the complaint said. It cited statements with antisemitic references to the Holocaust and the intifada and support for Hamas’ fight against Israel.

Instead of engaging in constitutionally protected free speech, the extreme demonstrators are “openly inciting violence against Jewish students,” the complaint said. Signs targeting Jewish students at Columbia imply that “these students should be the next victims of a massacre by Hamas’ military wing,” it said.

Columbia “has done nothing to curb this outrageous behavior or meaningfully discipline those responsible,” said the complaint. The administration’s “inaction and willingness to capitulate to the demands of this extremist element of demonstrators have fanned the flames of antisemitism across campus,” it alleged.

Though Columbia University President Minouche Shafik initially took a firm stance against the escalating “chaos” by issuing an ultimatum that police would be called to restore order if the extreme demonstrators in the encampment didn’t vacate by April 24, the deadline passed, and she instead said she was “negotiating” with them, the complaint said.

Columbia also hasn’t made a private effort to engage with Jewish students who have been displaced, the complaint said. Columbia’s administration ultimately agreed to allow the extreme demonstrators and the encampment to remain in place, “and in a shocking twist, decided to bar the only Jewish professor speaking out on behalf of the Jewish students from entering campus, citing safety concerns,” it said.

The university shifted to a “hybrid model” of education for the remainder of the semester, allowing students who don’t feel safe attending class in person to view the class online, said the complaint. “This absurd shift makes no attempt to solve the safety problem on campus, and at the same time, creates two very different educational experiences for Jewish and non-Jewish students,” it said. “The vast majority” of Columbia students, including the “extreme demonstrators,” can attend class and communicate with professors in person, “and otherwise take advantage of the campus,” it said.

Columbia’s Jewish students are getting a “second-class education where they are relegated to their homes to attend classes virtually, stripped of the opportunity to interact meaningfully with other students and faculty and sit for examinations with their peers,” the complaint said. The policy shift is a “clear admission” that since the rise of the protest movement, the university “has become a place that is too dangerous for Columbia’s Jewish students to receive the education they were promised,” it said.

The segregation of Jewish students “is a dangerous development that can quickly escalate into more severe acts of violence and discrimination, underscoring the critical importance of addressing and combating such behavior at its early stages,” said the complaint.

Plaintiff C.S.brings suit to hold Columbia “accountable for failing to provide a safe educational environment for its students.” She also seeks an emergency injunction, in a separate motion, requiring Columbia to enforce its statement of ethical conduct and administrative code of conduct “to provide safe and secure access to education free from harassment and discrimination” so that she and class members can “safely complete the semester in person with the rest of the student body.”