A lawsuit filed by a group of Penn professors alleging "McCarthyism" was dismissed by a judge on June 24.
Credit: Abhiram JuvvadiThe United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit filed against the University by a group of Penn faculty members. The lawsuit, which alleged “McCarthyism,” was dismissed due to lack of standing.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mitchell Goldberg granted Penn's motion to dismiss on June 24. In an opinion released Monday, he also denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, which aimed to prevent the University from submitting documents to an ongoing Congressional investigation.
The initial lawsuit was filed in March by associate professor of Arabic literature Huda Fakhreddine and history and Africana studies professor Eve Troutt Powell in conjunction with Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
The plaintiffs accused the University of “McCarthyism” for stifling speech critical of Israel. They sought to block Penn from complying with a U.S. House of Representatives committee's request for documents related to alleged antisemitism on campus, arguing that such compliance would threaten academic freedom.
A University spokesperson declined to comment.
In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, PFJP wrote, “With all due respect, the judge is mistaken in dismissing the case, and FJP will be appealing the decision. It is egregious that Penn is turning over faculty emails, syllabi, disciplinary case records, and other documents as part of this baseless, right-wing, Congressional witch hunt.”
“Harm has been done and is being done. Our university should protect its faculty and students and support academic freedom and its educational mission. It's not only human rights and the future of Palestine at stake, but also the future of our university system and democracy,” the group added.
The court noted that the plaintiffs failed to clearly specify what information Penn would disclose and how it would harm them. Additionally, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ assertion that Penn's exclusive knowledge of the documents in question should exempt them from the requirement to provide evidence of specific harms.
“I conclude Plaintiffs lack standing to bring this challenge,” Goldberg wrote in the decision. “They have not alleged what information Penn will disclose or how it will harm them … The fact that Plaintiffs were harassed before is not enough; Plaintiffs need to show that Penn's documents would contribute to that harassment.”
Goldberg granted the plaintiffs 14 days to file an amended complaint but noted multiple times throughout the opinion that such an amendment should “only be filed if Plaintiffs can, in good faith, allege facts to support standing.”
In early April, Penn requested a pre-motion conference to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing due to the absence of “concrete and certainly impending injuries.” Fakhreddine filed a response letter a few days later to prevent dismissal, asserting that Penn’s argument to dismiss lacked merit and highlighting ongoing threats and harassment faced by the plaintiffs.
The document submission in question relates to an investigation into Penn by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that began in December 2023. The DP previously reported that Penn would start a multi-week process of handing over documents to the committee in February.
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