Penn filed a new motion in its ongoing lawsuit alleging an insufficient response to antisemitism on campus, informing the court of the recent dismissal of a peer institution's case.
The motion, which Penn filed on July 31, points the court to a decision made in an antisemitism case against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The decision referenced by Penn argued that the state of antisemitism at MIT was constantly evolving, and MIT's punitive measures were not "clearly unreasonable" based on the information it had at the time.
A University spokesperson wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn does not comment on pending litigation.
2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby and College sophomore Jordan Davis first filed the lawsuit in December 2023, and Wharton and Engineering senior Noah Rubin joined as a plaintiff in March. The lawsuit alleges that Penn violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subjected students to a “pervasively hostile educational environment,” according to the preliminary statement.
Penn has since filed two motions to dismiss the case. Its July motion referenced a comparable antisemitism case in which the plaintiffs alleged that MIT violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students. The court dismissed the case on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that MIT acted with “deliberate indifference,” and that the University did take appropriate steps to address on-campus protests that posed a potential threat to Jewish students.
Rubin alleged in a statement to the DP that Penn "still has faculty who are on the side of Hamas," which he described as "disgraceful and dangerous." The DP could not confirm Rubin's allegations.
"The chants for Hamas’s Al-Qasam Brigade (heard at the encampment) and open support of terror should never be accepted on our campus," Rubin wrote.
Yakoby further condemned Penn's failure to discipline Political Science professor Anne Norton in a statement to the DP.
“Norton reposted Jake Shields, a known KKK supporter over the summer," Yakoby wrote. "She also has tweeted 'playing the victim is what Jews are best at.' Why is she still in the classroom? Clearly Penn has learned nothing from last year.”
The DP could not verify Yakoby's claim that Norton posted the statement above herself, but the watchdog organization Stop Antisemitism shared documentation of Norton liking an identical post in December 2023.
The DP left a request for comment with Norton.
In its previous motions to dismiss, the University argued that, contrary to the amended lawsuit’s claim, it had taken action to address the alleged harassment toward Jewish and Israeli students on campus.
On Aug. 23, Interim Penn President Larry Jameson wrote to the Penn community that the University is “actively implementing the recommendations of the University Task Force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community.”
This statement refers to the final reports of these two committees in late May. The recommendations include re-emphasizing the University’s opposition to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement, and encouraging the University to clarify its open expression policies. Over the summer, the University also began a review of the Guidelines on Open Expression and implemented a new set of temporary guidelines for campus demonstrations.
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