Johnson v. Georgetown University

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ANEESA JOHNSON,

Plaintiff,

v. Case No. 25-cv-1540 (CRC)

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, et al.

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on the

country roiled American college campuses like few other events since the Vietnam War.

Increased numbers of Jewish students reported experiencing or witnessing incidents of

antisemitism. Muslim students likewise reported encountering harassment and discrimination at

higher levels than before. And students protesting the offensive, some Jewish, have faced a

range of reprisals, including the revocation of job offers by would-be employers. That turmoil

permeates this case—which would otherwise be a garden-variety employment dispute involving

Georgetown University’s termination of a freshly-hired junior administrator.

Plaintiff Aneesa Johnson, an African American and Muslim woman of Palestinian origin,

alleges that Georgetown discriminated against her when it fired her after discovering eight-year-

old social media posts that described her “hat[red]” for Zionists. She also brings a bevy of

related hostile work environment, retaliation, and tort claims against Georgetown and a

constellation of other defendants, including Rachel Jessica Wolff and Ilya Shapiro, individuals

who publicized Johnson’s old posts on Twitter; Canary Mission, a controversial organization that

creates online profiles of students and professors on college campuses who have been critical of

Israel; and a handful of Canary Mission’s donors. All defendants save Canary Mission, which

has refused to appear in the case despite apparently being served, have moved to dismiss

Johnson’s claims on various grounds.

Upon consideration of the voluminous set of briefs in this case, the Court concludes that

Ms. Johnson’s claims against the movants must be dismissed with prejudice. Among myriad

grounds for dismissal, the complaint does not make out any claim that Johnson was

discriminated against based on her race, religion, or national origin, nor can she proceed in tort

against Georgetown or other defendants due to procedural and substantive defects in her claims.

Canary Mission, meanwhile, has not appeared or sought dismissal. As a result, the Court will

not dismiss the case entirely, permitting Johnson to pursue default proceedings against the

organization if she so chooses in light of the Court’s assessment of her claims against Canary

Mission below.

Several defendants have also moved for Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 (“Rule 11”)

sanctions against both Johnson and her attorney, Abdel-Rahman Hamed, contending that they

brought the suit for an improper purpose and that her claims are legally and factually frivolous.

The Court is generally “loath to impose sanctions under Rule 11 and does not take requests to do

so lightly.” Jones v. Campbell Univ., 322 F. Supp. 3d 106, 109 (D.D.C. 2018) (Cooper, J.).

Having considered the briefs and record, the Court will exercise its discretion to deny Mr.

Shapiro’s motion for sanctions and strike Ms. Wolff’s as untimely. However, it will grant the

Canary Mission donors’ motions for sanctions under Rules 11(b)(2) and (b)(3), as to Mr. Hamed

only. The Court declines to grant the donors’ request for monetary sanctions; instead, it

admonishes Hamed to exercise greater care in bringing any similar claims in the future.

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I. Background

A. Factual Background

Unless otherwise noted, the Court takes the following background from the facts alleged

in the Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”), which the Court must accept as true for present

purposes. While the complaint’s core narrative is largely uncontested, the defendants no doubt

dispute how Johnson has characterized the facts in many instances.

In August 2023, Johnson applied to serve as the Assistant Director of Academic and

Faculty Affairs at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service (“SFS”). SAC ¶ 106. A few

weeks after submitting her application, Johnson was invited to interview via Zoom with SFS

leadership, including the Director of the school’s Master of Science program (“MSFS”), George

Shambaugh. Id. ¶ 108. An in-person interview for the position soon followed, during which

Johnson met with administrators, staff members, and current MSFS students. Id. ¶¶ 110–12.

On October 2, Georgetown offered Johnson the position, which she eagerly accepted. Id.

¶¶ 114. Her offer letter described her employment as “at-will” and subject to Georgetown’s

Human Resources policies and practices. Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 53, Ex. A at 2.1

The offer letter also noted that Johnson would be “on a probationary status for the first six

months of employment.” Id. She would start the job on October 30. Id. at 1.

In Johnson’s telling, Georgetown’s enthusiasm about her hiring faded quickly. SAC ¶

115. According to the complaint, at a welcome lunch on Johnson’s first day, “faculty members

interrogated [her] about her heritage[,]” with one professor “ask[ing] if she was Sudanese, then

press[ing] further when she disclosed her Palestinian roots.” Id. ¶ 116–17. At this point,

1

As explained below, the Court may consider documents referred to in the complaint that

are central to plaintiff’s claims without converting the motion into one for summary judgment.

3

Johnson recounts, Director Shambaugh “redirected conversation to the ‘war in Gaza.’” Id. ¶ 118.

It was, of course, a sensitive moment at the university and beyond. Three weeks earlier, on

October 7, the militant group Hamas had carried out a gruesome attack on Israel, which resulted

in the deaths of over 1,200 civilians and the taking of scores of hostages. Israel immediately

launched a retaliatory military campaign in the Gaza Strip that has, in the roughly two-and-a-half

years since, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced many thousands more from

their homes. Johnson claims that Director Shambaugh’s conversational redirection at the

welcome lunch made her “visibly uncomfortable and upset—forcing colleagues to intervene.”

Id. ¶¶ 118.

After Johnson was introduced to the SFS community by email, Rachel Wolff—a Jewish

dual degree student at SFS and Georgetown’s law school—looked Johnson up online. Id. ¶¶

125–26. The top search result was a profile of Johnson on the website of Canary Mission, id. ¶

126, which the complaint characterizes as an “anonymous cyberstalking and blacklisting”

operation that “targets” individuals who advocate for Palestinian rights. Id. ¶ 49. According to

Johnson, Canary Mission “maintains complete operational anonymity, with no public

identification of leadership, staff, or physical locations,” id. ¶ 55, and it does so in part by

“employ[ing] an elaborate network of intermediaries to obscure its true sources of funding and

control,” id. ¶ 50. Drawing on public reporting, Johnson alleges that Defendants Jewish

Community Federation of San Francisco, the Helen Diller Family Foundation, the Milstein

Family Foundation, and Adam Milstein have contributed to “passthrough entities” that redirect

their funds to Canary Mission and support its operations in a way that targets university students

and faculty across the country. Id. ¶¶ 49–54, 68, 79–83, 234–239; see also id. ¶ 81 n.56 (citing

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James Bamford, Who Is Funding Canary Mission? Inside the Doxxing Operation Targeting Anti-

Zionist Students and Professors, The Nation (Dec. 22, 2023), https://perma.cc/6A4L-SPV9).

Canary Mission’s profile on Johnson, which has apparently existed since 2015, see SAC

¶¶ 96–102, included Twitter2 posts that Johnson made eight years earlier as a first-year

undergraduate student at Northwestern University, during which time she “organized protests

and advocated for the university to divest from” Israeli companies and “participated in campus

demonstrations opposing Northwestern’s investments in corporations . . . directly implicated in

the demolition of Palestinian homes and military occupation,” id. ¶ 93.

Three of Johnson’s posts are relevant here. The first read, “Ever since going to

[Northwestern] I have a deep seeded [sic] hate for Zio bitches. They bring out the worst in me.”

Id. ¶ 89. The second elaborated, “You know why I call them Zio bitches, because they’re dogs.”

Id. And the third post was a repost of another user’s Tweet, which included a photograph of a

scowling Orthodox Jewish man with the caption, “When the whole world hates you bc you a

thief and grow up looking like a shaytan #GrowingUpIsraeli.” Id. ¶ 90. (“Shaytan” means devil

or demon in Arabic.) After Johnson made these posts, she says she “close[d] her social media

accounts and withdr[e]w from public activism” to “avoid . . . harassment.” Id. ¶¶ 101, 103. But

the posts remain accessible on Canary Mission’s site.

Alarmed at what her Google search turned up, Wolff took to Twitter herself. Late in the

evening on November 1, she posted screenshots of Johnson’s college-era Tweets, retrieved from

Canary Mission, with some added commentary: “Not to be outdone by Harvard, Georgetown

@georgetownsfs just hired this antisemite to be the ‘primary point of contact for all MSFS

2

The social media platform Twitter was rebranded as “X” in mid-2023. Given that some

of the events in this case predate the name change, the Court will refer to the platform as Twitter

for consistency.

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Students on everything academic.’ As an SFS student, I’d rather fail my master’s program than

speak to someone who says this about my people.” Id. ¶ 127.

Wolff’s Tweet went viral, garnering over a million views. Id. She followed up with

additional posts, calling SFS and Georgetown “shameful” for their hiring decision. Id. ¶ 129.

According to the complaint, Wolff’s Tweets were amplified by Canary Mission, the Israeli

government, and other users. Id. ¶ 130. One of those users was Ilya Shapiro, a former

Georgetown law school lecturer and administrator, who reposted Wolff’s initial Tweet, adding

“Her name is Aneesa Johnson, @Georgetown School of Foreign Service’s new assistant director

of academic affairs.” Id. ¶ 131.

Things escalated quickly from there. The next morning, around 8 a.m., Director

Shambaugh called Johnson and “instruct[ed] her not to come to the office due to ‘unspecified

threats to her safety.’” Id. ¶ 132. An hour later, Shambaugh called again and informed Johnson

that she would be placed on paid administrative leave. Id. ¶ 133.

Around 10:40 a.m., SFS Dean Joel Hellman sent an email to the entire school, explaining

that the administration had been “recently made aware of hateful, antisemitic social media

commentary alleged to have been made by a recently hired staff member who started working at

the School of Foreign Service earlier this week.” Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. B at 1.

Hellman explained that SFS officials had not been aware of the comments when they hired

Johnson, and that she had been placed on immediate leave, “pending an investigation of the

comments,” which, “[i]f verified,” would lead to “immediate and appropriate action.” Id.

Hellman continued by condemning “[a]ntisemitic language and imagery” on campus and

expressing pride at “how [the] SFS community ha[d] worked through the difficult events of the

past several weeks together acknowledging differences, engaging in dialogue, and respecting

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each other.” Id. The email concluded by acknowledging “how difficult this time has been for so

many of our community members” and affirming that the “highest priority is the safety, security,

and well-being of our community.” Id.

A few minutes after Dean Hellman’s email was circulated, Johnson reports that she

“received her first hate message in her work email” and was then “subjected to extensive doxing,

with her personal information shared across various . . . social media accounts and websites.”

SAC ¶¶ 135, 137. Wolff, for her part, dashed off an “UPDATE” to Twitter that Johnson had

been “placed on administrative leave,” though she had a “hard time believing” that Georgetown

“was not aware of her background . . . when it’s the first thing that comes up when you Google

her name.” Id. ¶ 138. To cap off the tumultuous day, Johnson received a letter from Director

Shambaugh late in the afternoon, which formally alerted her that she had been placed on

administrative leave pending an investigation “related to [her] online conduct . . . which, if

substantiated, would be in violation of University policies, including professional conduct

policies.” Id. ¶ 142.

The complaint is mostly silent as to what transpired during Georgetown’s subsequent

investigation. Johnson alleges that on November 8, she “sent a letter to Georgetown

documenting concerns of discriminatory conduct,” which the university “did not heed.” Id. ¶

144. The letter—signed by Johnson’s then-attorney Gadeir Abass of the Council on American-

Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) Legal Defense Fund—stated that Johnson would “not respond to

questions about her entry on Canary Mission’s discriminatory blacklist” and “implore[d]” Dean

Hellman “to set aside Canary Mission as a source for valid, trustworthy information” given its

reputation as “an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim hate group” among various “academic institutions,

academics, religious groups[,] and religious leaders.” Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. C at 1–

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2. The letter did not, however, dispute that Johnson had posted the offending Tweets. Nor did it

document any other instances of discrimination Johnson professed to have suffered in her brief

employment to that point.3

On November 27, Georgetown terminated Johnson’s employment. SAC ¶ 145. The

termination letter, signed by Director Shambaugh, explained the decision as follows:

[T]he University investigated allegations that you engaged in unprofessional

conduct based on your social media activity, including, but not limited to posts from

2015 which were shared with Georgetown University during the first week of your

employment . . . . Your social media conduct has had a significantly negative impact

on the MSFS Program and in extension its Walsh School of Foreign Service and

the wider Georgetown Community. It also impacts your ability to engage fully

with members of our community.

The University’s review concluded that you engaged in unprofessional conduct

based on the postings that you made and your subsequent failure to address

concerns raised by your social media activities. The Assistant Director of

Academic and Faculty Affairs is required to interact with many different

constituencies to perform the essential functions of the position, including students,

alumni, faculty, and staff. Communicating carefully and thoughtfully is critical to

developing good relationships with stakeholders, and hence to success in this

position. You do not deny that you made the posts at issue. Your failure to

acknowledge or address these posts and their impact has a detrimental effect on the

willingness of some members of the community to engage with you, and raises

concerns about your willingness to engage with these various constituencies in a

professional way. It also poses concerns about the impact of SFS to fulfill its

mission by engaging its various constituencies.

3

The following spring, Johnson filed a discrimination charge with the Equal

Employment Opportunity Commission, which is mentioned in the complaint and appended to

Georgetown’s motion to dismiss. The charge provides a touch more detail about Georgetown’s

investigation. According to the charge, Johnson “received a call from Human Resources” the

day after being placed on leave, and a “representative asked to speak” to her “about ‘tweets’ that

Canary Mission alleged she had made.” Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E at 5. After

receiving Johnson’s November 8 letter, she and her attorney “met with HR over a Zoom meeting

late November. The HR representative questioned Ms. Johnson about the Canary Mission

profile . . . . HR also asked Ms. Johnson if she was capable of fulfilling the duties [of] this

position.” Id. The administrative charge does not indicate how Johnson answered these

questions.

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Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. D at 1. The letter went on to state that Johnson was being

fired pursuant to the university’s Human Resources Policy #204, which provides for termination

“at any time during the probationary period” if the employee’s department determines that she

“cannot accomplish the job” or that her “behavior is unacceptable[.]” Id. at 2.

As a result of the alleged actions of the defendants named in this case—Georgetown,

Director Shambaugh, Dean Hellman, Wolff, Shapiro, Canary Mission, and a handful of Canary

Mission’s donors—Johnson states that she has suffered various harms, including panic attacks,

insomnia, anxiety, and reputational damage. SAC ¶ 146.

B. Procedural Background

In April 2024, Johnson filed a charge of discrimination based on race, religion, color, sex,

and national origin with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). See SAC

¶ 9. The charge, which named only Georgetown University as a respondent, asserted that

Johnson was treated disparately based on her protected identities, as she was fired for her social

media posts whereas other white, non-Muslim university employees were not disciplined for

their offensive Tweets. See generally Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E. Johnson designated

her EEOC charge as cross-filed with the local fair employment practices agency. Id. at 1–2; see

also SAC ¶ 10.

Johnson filed the present action in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in

February 2025. Consistent with her EEOC charge, the initial complaint identified Georgetown

as the only defendant. Johnson swiftly replaced the original complaint with a First Amended

Complaint (“FAC”), which ballooned to fifteen counts, including various civil rights and tort

claims, against Georgetown and nine additional defendants: Dean Hellman and Director

Shambaugh, who, along with Georgetown, are referred to hereinafter as the “Georgetown

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Defendants”; Rachel Wolff, Ilya Shapiro, and Canary Mission; the Jewish Community

Federation of San Francisco and Helen Diller Family Foundation (“San Francisco Defendants”);

and the Milstein Family Foundation and Adam Milstein (“Milstein Defendants”). The San

Francisco and Milstein Defendants are referred to collectively as the “Donor Defendants.”

The Georgetown Defendants removed the case to federal court in May. See generally

ECF No. 1. Over the summer of 2025, as motion-to-dismiss briefing was underway, Johnson

sought leave to file a Second Amended Complaint, promising that she would narrow the disputed

issues in the case. See ECF No. 44. The Court granted her request. See Aug. 18, 2025 Min.

Order. Although the resulting SAC removed some claims against some defendants, it added

several others. See ECF No. 47. The still-hefty SAC spans 501 paragraphs over 118 pages.

All defendants except Canary Mission have since filed or refiled motions to dismiss the

claims against them. A subset of defendants—Shapiro, Wolff, and the Donor Defendants—have

also moved for Rule 11 sanctions against Johnson and her counsel. The Court heard argument

on all the pending motions on February 19, 2026.

II. Legal Standards

The defendants move for dismissal on a variety of grounds, including lack of personal

jurisdiction, untimeliness, failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and failure to state a claim.

The Court reviews Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) and 12(b)(6)’s legal standards in

broad strokes here and applies them in more fine-tuned fashion below.

Under Rule 12(b)(2), a defendant may move to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

“On a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(2), the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing

a factual basis for a court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over the defendant.” Stocks v.

Cordish Cos., Inc., 118 F. Supp. 3d 81, 86 (D.D.C. 2015). In so doing, “the plaintiff may not

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rely on conclusory allegations, but instead must make a showing of the facts necessary to

connect each defendant to the forum.” Devorah v. Royal Bank of Canada, 115 F. Supp. 3d 35,

38 (D.D.C. 2015). “[W]hile the Court must resolve factual discrepancies in favor of the plaintiff,

it need not accept the plaintiff’s factual allegations as true,” Swecker v. Midland Power Coop.,

253 F. Supp. 3d 274, 278 (D.D.C. 2017) (citation omitted), and “may consider affidavits and

other materials to determine the exercise of jurisdiction,” Stocks, 118 F. Supp. 3d at 86.

To survive dismissal on a Rule 12(b)(6) challenge, the complaint must “contain sufficient

factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570

(2007)). A complaint is plausible when its factual content “allows the court to draw the

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. at 678. “The

plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer

possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “A

pleading that offers ‘labels and conclusions’ or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause

of action will not do,’” nor will a complaint that “tenders ‘naked assertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further

factual enhancement.’” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 557).

The Court must make every reasonable inference in the plaintiff’s favor at this stage,

considering the alleged facts, “documents attached . . . or incorporated by reference in the

complaint, and matters about which the Court may take judicial notice.” Gustave–Schmidt v.

Chao, 226 F. Supp. 2d 191, 196 (D.D.C. 2002). “Where a document is referred to in the

complaint and is central to the plaintiff’s claim, such a document attached to the motion papers

may be considered without converting the motion to one for summary judgment.” Solomon v.

Off. of Architect of the Capitol, 539 F. Supp. 2d 347, 349–50 (D.D.C. 2008) (cleaned up).

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III. Analysis

The SAC includes thirteen causes of action against all or some subset of the ten

defendants. The Court first addresses threshold jurisdictional issues; then reviews Johnson’s

array of discrimination claims under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1985, and the D.C. Human

Right Act (“DCHRA”); and finally turns to her tort claims. Along the way, various defendants

and claims fall away. On occasion, in the interest of comprehensiveness, the Court addresses the

merits of a particular claim, even though the claim is also defective for some procedural reason.

The Court does not consider the merits of claims against defendants over whom it cannot

exercise personal jurisdiction. Cf. Sinochem Int’l Co. Ltd. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549

U.S. 422, 430–31 (2007) (“[A] federal court generally may not rule on the merits of a case

without first determining that it has jurisdiction over . . . the parties[.]”).

A. Personal Jurisdiction

At the threshold, the Donor Defendants and Ilya Shapiro assert that the Court lacks

personal jurisdiction over them. It is Johnson’s burden to “establish[] a factual basis” for

exercising personal jurisdiction. Stocks, 118 F. Supp. 3d at 86. She offers a few different

jurisdictional theories, but none of them pencil out.

First, Johnson contends that the Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over these

defendants pursuant to D.C. Code § 13-423(a)(4), one “finger” of the District’s long-arm statute.

Crane v. Carr, 814 F.2d 758, 759 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Section 13-423(a)(4) provides for personal

jurisdiction where a defendant “caus[es] tortious injury in the District of Columbia by an act or

omission outside the District of Columbia,” so long as the defendant “[1] regularly does or

solicits business, [2] engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or [3] derives substantial

revenue from goods used or consumed, or services rendered, in the District of Columbia[.]” The

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latter three “plus factors” are designed to “filter out cases in which the in[-]forum impact is an

isolated event and the defendant otherwise has no, or scant, affiliations with the forum.” Hindu

Am. Found. v. Viswanath, 646 F. Supp. 3d 78, 94 (D.D.C. 2022) (quoting Crane, 814 F.2d at

763). The plaintiff’s cause of action “need not arise from the ‘plus factors’ imposed by

subsection (a)(4),” and “a defendant’s contacts need not be great to satisfy” the provision. Lewy

v. S. Poverty L. Ctr., Inc., 723 F. Supp. 2d 116, 123–24 (D.D.C. 2010). But “the contacts must

at least be continuing in character.” Hindu Am. Found., 646 F. Supp. 3d at 94 (cleaned up).

As to the Donor Defendants, Johnson focuses on the second plus factor, arguing that they

“engaged in a persistent course of conduct in the District by systematically funding Canary

Mission’s cyberstalking operations that specifically target D.C.-based individuals and

institutions.” Omnibus Response to Defs.’ Motions to Dismiss (“Omnibus Response”) at 19.

Her complaint alleges that these donors funded Canary Mission through front organizations like

Megamot Shalom and Central Fund of Israel. See, e.g., SAC ¶¶ 16–18, 20–21, 53. But, as

unsavory as Canary Mission’s modus operandi may be to many, Johnson’s assertion that the

donors have “targeted” the District, see SAC ¶ 83, is conclusory at best.

The complaint describes Canary Mission’s general tactics, which include not only

creating online profiles of Palestinian advocates but also “actively contacting employers to share

derogatory information about targets,” “surveill[ing]” students on university campuses, and

providing information about protestors to domestic and foreign law enforcement. SAC ¶¶ 60–

68. Yet Johnson does not offer any concrete detail about how such tactics are specifically

directed at the District of Columbia. And even if Canary Mission could be said to have engaged

in a “persistent course of conduct” in the District by publishing profiles about people who live or

work here, see, e.g., SAC ¶ 83, such contact is beside the point. The complaint does not allege a

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persistent course of conduct that the Donor Defendants have directed toward the District.

Rather, Johnson alleges that the donors sought to fund “operations” and “campaigns” that

targeted “Palestinian advocates,” usually without specifying location.4 See, e.g. SAC ¶¶ 378–79.

On the rare occasion that the complaint describes the donors’ activity as affecting Palestinian

advocacy in places “including Georgetown,” see, e.g., SAC ¶ 236, that phrasing underscores the

incidental nature of the donors’ contact with the forum. So although Johnson cites cases like

Lewy, in which the court exercised jurisdiction over an out-of-state group based on its direct

engagement with District residents, these cases are inapposite under the circumstances here.

Johnson’s jurisdictional theory seems to rest on the assumption that the Court can

automatically impute Canary Mission’s in-District conduct to its donors. But personal

jurisdiction cannot be exercised by the wave of a hand: “The contacts necessary for the Court to

exercise personal jurisdiction must be assessed individually for each defendant.” Mouzon v.

Radiancy, Inc., 85 F. Supp. 3d 361, 371 (D.D.C. 2015) (citing Keeton v. Hustler Mag., Inc., 465

U.S. 770, 781 n.13 (1984)). This is not to say that organizational donors can never expect to be

sued in D.C. courts pursuant to section 13-423(a)(4). But without more—perhaps, for instance,

some factual allegation demonstrating that the donor directed its funds to the organization with

the objective or specific knowledge that the money would be used to engage in conduct in the

District—the connection between this forum and an out-of-state donor with no other D.C. ties

would appear fortuitous, and the exercise of personal jurisdiction under section 13-423(a)(4)

unsupported. See Citadel Inv. Grp., L.L.C. v. Citadel Cap. Co., 699 F. Supp. 2d 303, 310

4

The closest Johnson comes to alleging that the donors targeted the District is not very

close at all. The complaint states that the “Milstein Family Foundation deliberately targeted its

efforts at the District of Columbia by funding Canary Mission’s operations targeting Georgetown

students and faculty, including profiles of MSFS community members.” SAC ¶ 83. That

sentence is too conclusory to pass muster under the Twombly/Iqbal pleading standard.

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(D.D.C. 2010) (“[F]ortuitous contacts cannot give rise to personal jurisdiction.”).5 To hold

otherwise would subject anyone who contributes to an organization that engages continuously in

the District to being haled into court here on the mere basis of that association. Such a rule

would be at odds with bedrock principles of personal jurisdiction.

With respect to Shapiro, Johnson concedes that his re-post of Wolff’s Tweet “occurred

from his home in Virginia[.]” Omnibus Response at 97. To justify the Court’s exercise of

jurisdiction over Shapiro under section 13-423(a)(4), Johnson’s complaint relies on his former

connection with Georgetown during his short-lived tenure at the university in 2022. See

Omnibus Response at 22.6 But this connection significantly predates both his November 2023

Tweet about Johnson and the filing of this lawsuit in February 2025, and “personal jurisdiction

contacts are determined at the time the initial complaint is filed[.]” Allen v. Russ. Fed’n, 522 F.

Supp. 2d 167, 194 (D.D.C. 2007). Although Johnson insists that Shapiro used his “institutional

5

To support her position, Johnson cites personal jurisdiction decisions decided under the

Antiterrorism Act (“ATA”). See Omnibus Response at 20 (citing Wultz v. Islamic Republic of

Iran, 755 F. Supp. 2d 1, 32–34 (D.D.C. 2010); Bernhardt v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 47 F.4th

856, 875 (D.C. Cir. 2022)). There are obvious distinctions between such cases and the one at

bar, not least that the ATA authorizes personal jurisdiction over individuals with nationwide

minimum contacts, so the jurisdictional analyses under that law and section 13-423(a)(4) are

categorically different. But even if the logic of such decisions applied here, in order to establish

personal jurisdiction over financiers of terrorism under the ATA, plaintiffs must allege more than

an attenuated connection between those funders and the forum state. See, e.g., Bernhardt, 47

F.4th at 863–66. Johnson’s reliance on these cases is therefore misplaced.

6

At the hearing on the motions to dismiss, Johnson’s counsel suggested that the Court

could exercise 13-423(a)(4) jurisdiction over Shapiro based on his re-Tweet of Wolff’s post. See

Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 78:17–25. Although Shapiro’s conduct on that occasion was

arguably targeted at the District, it was not “continuing in character.” Hindu Am. Found., 646 F.

Supp. 3d at 94 (citation omitted). Counsel also suggested that the Court could exercise

jurisdiction over Shapiro because he is a “national spokesperson” who is often “called to D.C.”

Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 79:8–9. Such allegations are nowhere to be found in the complaint,

and the Court will not entertain them for the first time now. Furthermore, they are undercut by

the jurisdictional affidavit Shapiro filed along with his motion to dismiss, which Johnson did not

attempt to contest. See Shapiro Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 52-2 ¶¶ 3-7.

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credibility” as “Georgetown’s very own ‘Constitutional Law and Supreme Court Expert’” to

amplify his Tweet, SAC ¶¶ 435, 131, that framing is her own. In fact, Johnson admits in her

opposition brief that at the time of the re-Tweet, Shapiro “held no official position, authority, or

capacity at Georgetown whatsoever,” nor did he have any “communication with Georgetown” or

other “authority” to weigh in on its employment practices. Omnibus Response at 97. Johnson

thus fails to show that any of subsection (a)(4)’s plus factors are satisfied. And aside from a

passing reference to section 13-423(a)(3), see Omnibus Response at 22,7 she offers no other

statutory hook for jurisdiction over Shapiro.

Second, Johnson asks the Court to apply the Calder effects test to conclude that it has

jurisdiction over the donors and Shapiro. See Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984). The Court

declines the invitation. “Calder concerns the constitutional aspect of personal jurisdiction, but it

is black letter law in this Circuit that ‘a court must first examine whether jurisdiction is

applicable under the state’s long-arm statute and then determine whether a finding of jurisdiction

satisfies the constitutional requirements of due process.’” Allen v. Addi, No. 20-cv-1650 (TSC),

2021 WL 4306078, at *11 (D.D.C. Sep. 22, 2021) (quoting GTE New Media Servs. Inc. v.

BellSouth Corp., 199 F.3d 1343, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2000)). “Here, the [C]ourt has already

considered, and rejected,” Johnson’s proffered “basis for jurisdiction under the District’s long-

7

Section 13-423(a)(3) grants jurisdiction over a person who “caus[es] tortious injury in

the District of Columbia by an act or omission in the District of Columbia.” Johnson concedes

that Shapiro re-Tweeted Wolff’s post from his home in Virginia. Omnibus Response at 97. The

record thus indicates that Shapiro did not carry out an “act or omission in the District[.]”

One could imagine other theories of jurisdiction that Johnson might have invoked as to

Shapiro. But given that Johnson furnished no other statutory basis in her papers, and it is the

“plaintiff’s burden to establish” personal jurisdiction “in a manner” that gives “the district court

fair notice” of its arguments, FC Inv. Group LC v. IFX Markets, Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 1095 (D.C.

Cir. 2008), overruled on other grounds by Erwin-Simpson v. AirAsia Berhad, 985 F.3d 883

(D.C. Cir. 2021), the Court will not go out of its way to conjure alternatives.

16

arm statute.” Id. So there is no occasion for the Court to embark on the second-order due

process inquiry.8

Third and finally, Johnson maintains that the Court may exercise personal jurisdiction

over both Shapiro and the Donor Defendants based on her alleged conspiracy. “In order to

establish jurisdiction under a theory of civil conspiracy, the plaintiff must plead with particularity

overt acts within the forum taken in furtherance of the conspiracy[.]” FC Inv. Grp. LC v. IFX

Mkts., Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 1097 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (cleaned up), overruled on other grounds by

Erwin-Simpson v. AirAsia Berhad, 985 F.3d 883 (D.C. Cir. 2021). “Bald speculation or a

conclusory statement that individuals are co-conspirators is insufficient to establish personal

jurisdiction under a conspiracy theory.” Id. (cleaned up).

As the Court explains below, Johnson has failed to allege the existence of a conspiracy at

all, let alone that “overt acts” were taken by Shapiro or the donors “within the forum” in

“furtherance of the conspiracy.” Id. She simply recites the sequence of events in the case and

8

It is true that certain subsections of section 13-423 “authorize[] jurisdiction to the full

extent allowed by the Due Process Clause,” at which point the statutory and constitutional

inquiries merge. Media Matters for Am. v. Paxton, 138 F.4th 563, 576 (D.C. Cir. 2025). But

(a)(4) does not appear to be one of those subsections. See Forras v. Rauf, 812 F.3d 1102, 1108

(D.C. Cir. 2016) (explaining that “Subsection (a)(4)’s reach is far more cabined” than the federal

Due Process Clause); see also Hindu Am. Found., 646 F. Supp. 3d at 93–94 (“Section 13-

423(a)(4) is ‘more restrictive than the Due Process Clause of the Constitution[.]’” (citation

omitted); Fiorentine v. Sarton P.R., LLC, 486 F. Supp. 3d 377, 385 (D.D.C. 2020)

(“[J]urisdiction under subsection (a)(4) requires an additional demonstration of certain ‘plus

factors’ deemed more restrictive than the constitutional floor.”). An argument could perhaps be

made that the D.C. Court of Appeals narrowed the daylight between (a)(4) and the federal due

process requirement when it recently reiterated that “the requirement of a ‘persistent course of

conduct’ . . . ensur[es] that ‘there are minimum contacts with the forum sufficient to satisfy due

process concerns.’” Akhmetshin v. Browder, 275 A.3d 290, 295 (D.C. 2022) (citation omitted);

see also Alpine Consulting Partners, LLC v. Jacokes, 25-cv-913 (SLS), 2025 WL 2959574, at *4

(D.D.C. Oct. 17, 2025) (suggesting that constitutional minimum contacts satisfies (a)(4)’s

“persistent course of conduct” requirement)). But Johnson has not made this argument, and the

Court will not do her work for her.

17

asks the Court to draw an inference of express agreement from their temporal proximity. The

notion that these defendants are co-conspirators is speculative at best, rendering the allegations

“insufficient to establish a conspiracy theory of personal jurisdiction.” Id. at 1098.

In sum, Johnson has failed to establish that the Court may exercise personal jurisdiction

over the Donor Defendants or Shapiro. All claims against these defendants are thus dismissed.

B. Discrimination Claims

1. Title VII

At its core, this is an employment discrimination case. Johnson’s central claim is that she

was treated adversely based on her race, religion, and national origin when some of her college-

era social media posts came to light and Georgetown terminated her as a consequence. She adds

that she was subjected to a hostile work environment and unlawful retaliation.

Before assessing these Title VII claims, a brief interjection. The complaint asserts that

Director Shambaugh and Dean Hellman are individually liable for violating Johnson’s civil

rights. Where a supervisory employee is named alongside an employer in a Title VII suit, the

claim against the supervisor “essentially merges” with the claim against the employing

institution because the supervisor “cannot be held liable in his personal capacity[.]” Gary v.

Long, 59 F.3d 1391, 1399 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Moreover, Johnson’s opposition brief concedes that

Title VII generally “bars individual liability[.]” Omnibus Response at 36. The Court will thus

dismiss all Title VII claims against Director Shambaugh and Dean Hellman, as they merge with

Johnson’s claims against Georgetown. Now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

a. Disparate Treatment

“In order to bring an actionable discrimination claim under Title VII,” a plaintiff “must

establish that: (1) [s]he is a member of a protected class; (2) [s]he suffered an adverse

18

employment action; and (3) the adverse action gives rise to an inference of discrimination.”

Patzy v. Hochberg, 217 F. Supp. 3d 357, 361 (D.D.C. 2016). “An employment discrimination

plaintiff is not required to plead every fact necessary to establish a prima facie case to survive a

motion to dismiss.” Id. (citation omitted). She “must, however, plead sufficient facts to

demonstrate plausible relief.” Id.

It is undisputed that Johnson is a member of several protected classes; she is African-

American, Muslim, and of Palestinian national origin. It is also undisputed that she suffered an

adverse employment action. The question is thus whether the complaint alleges sufficient facts

to support a reasonable inference that the adverse action can be attributed to her “membership in

the[se] protected class[es].” Bartlette v. Hyatt Regency, 208 F. Supp. 3d 311, 321–22 (D.D.C.

2016) (quoting Brown v. Sessoms, 774 F.3d 1016, 1022 (D.C. Cir. 2014)).

Johnson highlights several pieces of circumstantial evidence to bolster this inference.

See generally Omnibus Response at 24–29. The Court sifts through her laundry list of

allegations before turning to the crux of the disparate treatment claim, which is Johnson’s

comparator theory of Title VII liability.

i. Circumstantial Evidence

To begin, Johnson points to the “temporal proximity between Georgetown’s discovery of

[her] Palestinian identity during her welcome lunch on October 30, 2023, and her suspension on

November 2, 2023[.]” Omnibus Response at 24. That proximity does not take Johnson far, as

the discovery of her offensive Tweets on November 1 is an obvious intervening factor that

undermines any inference of discrimination based on timing.

As to whether the purported remarks and conversation at the welcome lunch are

independently suggestive of improper bias, the Court is not persuaded. Johnson alleges that

19

“faculty members interrogated” her “about her heritage,” and that one faculty member in

particular “asked if she was Sudanese, then pressed further when she disclosed her Palestinian

roots.” SAC ¶¶ 116, 117. While Johnson may well have taken umbrage at any such prying,

without more context, the professors’ questions do not suggest invidious animus. Even more to

the point, Johnson never suggests that the professors at the lunch played any part in her

subsequent discipline and termination.

Johnson also maintains that MSFS Director Shambaugh “redirected conversation to the

‘war in Gaza,’ making Ms. Johnson visibly uncomfortable and upset—forcing colleagues to

intervene.” SAC ¶ 118. As alleged, Shambaugh’s conduct also does not give rise to an inference

that he was motivated by improper bias in any subsequent employment decision; indeed, the

complaint provides no detail or suggestion as to what was actually said during this conversation.

The Court accepts that workplace conversations about the conflict in Gaza may have been

upsetting to Johnson—but without any further sense of what transpired at the faculty lunch, her

assertions that Shambaugh “reduced her Palestinian identity to a crude political trope” and

“implicit[ly] demand[ed]” that she “state her position on Palestine before being granted basic

respect” are groundless. SAC ¶¶ 119, 122.

Next, Johnson mentions Georgetown’s probation policy, which states, in relevant part:

Normally, an employee will be allowed to complete the probationary period before

any decision is made to continue or end employment. However, if the department

determines that performance indicates that the employee cannot accomplish the job

or if the department determines that the individual’s behavior is unacceptable, the

University may terminate employment at any time during the probationary period.

SAC ¶ 150. Johnson insists that Georgetown “deviated” from this policy in terminating her so

quickly because new employees are “[n]ormally” allowed to complete the probationary period.

Omnibus Response at 24. But the policy clearly affords the university the right to fire an

20

employee for behavior that her department deems “unacceptable[,]” and Johnson does not

persuasively explain how Georgetown “violated” its own policy by taking action that was clearly

contemplated by the quoted provision, id.—let alone how such a violation would suggest bias

based on Johnson’s race, religion, or national origin.

Johnson next takes aim at the adequacy of Georgetown’s investigation, pointing to the

university’s almost immediate decision to place her on administrative leave; its heavy reliance on

materials provided by Canary Mission; and its purported failure to provide Johnson with a

“meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations.” Id. at 25–26. It is true that Georgetown

acted swiftly upon discovering Johnson’s old social media posts, but given the understandable

and immediate outrage that the offensive posts apparently engendered, the timing of its response

does not evince invidious discrimination. It is surprising that Georgetown did not learn of

Johnson’s posts during the hiring process. Still, the most that can be reasonably inferred from

the oversight is a lapse in the university’s vetting process. It is quite a leap to infer from this

lapse that Georgetown “concocted [a] post hoc [explanation] to rationalize” a discriminatory

decision. Omnibus Response at 26.

As to the supposed shortcomings in Georgetown’s investigation, Johnson does not

provide a factual foothold for her assertion that the inquiry was a hastily-plucked fig-leaf for

discrimination. Her complaint does not describe one way or another what happened between

November 8, when her counsel sent a letter to Georgetown, and November 27, when she was

officially terminated. SAC ¶ 144–45. Johnson baldly speculates in her briefing that the

university “fail[ed] to conduct any independent verification” of Canary Mission’s profile before

firing her. Omnibus Response at 25; see also id. at 26. But her EEOC charge belies the assertion

that Georgetown gave her no opportunity to respond. See Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E at

21

6 (“Johnson and her attorney met with HR over a Zoom meeting late November. The HR

representative questioned Ms. Johnson about the Canary Mission profile . . . . HR also asked Ms.

Johnson if she was capable of fulfilling the duties [of] this position.”). Johnson’s termination

letter further underscores that she was not fired solely based on her posts, but also her

“subsequent failure to address concerns raised by” her social media activity, which strongly

implies that she had an opportunity to respond to the university’s accusations, and, perhaps on

advice of counsel, chose not to take it. Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. D at 1.9

At any rate, Johnson has brought a discrimination claim, not a due process claim. What

matters is not so much whether Georgetown inappropriately expedited its disciplinary process,

but whether its treatment of Johnson can be fairly attributed to her race, religion, or national

origin. The complaint fails to generate such an inference.

Johnson finally accuses Georgetown of mischaracterizing her Tweets in an

“inflammatory” way, further evincing discriminatory bias. Omnibus Response at 27–29.

Georgetown’s communications in November 2023 do not strike the Court as at all improper—

after all, the university was under no obligation to perform a close reading of facially offensive

posts that Johnson admits she made and that some substantial portion of the SFS community

understandably interpreted as antisemitic. Once again, the question is not whether the

university’s commentary was inflammatory in a vacuum, but inflammatory in a way that evinces

invidious animus. Setting aside any comparison as to how Georgetown treated Ilya Shapiro for

9

At the motions hearing, Johnson’s attorney elaborated that “instead of giving [Johnson]

an investigation, [Human Resources] said they’d give her one opportunity right now to provide

an explanation to [her prior] statement[s].” Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 69:1–3. He represented

that Human Resources told Johnson, “You’re about to be terminated. Do you want to give an

explanation to your Tweet[?]” Id. at 69:17–20. But neither the complaint nor Johnson’s EEOC

charge describes what transpired during the call between Johnson and Georgetown’s HR

representative, and her attorney’s new assertions at the hearing cannot supplement the pleadings.

22

his controversial social media posts, which the Court turns to momentarily, the university’s

characterization of Johnson’s Tweets was focused entirely on the content of her speech, rather

than any of her protected identities.

The Court has weighed Johnson’s circumstantial allegations of discrimination. Both

individually and taken together, they do not support an inference of discrimination under Title

VII.10

ii. Comparator Theory

Johnson’s last-standing Title VII argument at least lands in the ballpark: that the Court

can infer class-based discrimination because Georgetown did not discipline or terminate white,

Jewish, non-Palestinian employees who posted supposedly offensive racial or anti-Palestinian

content on social media during or before their employ with Georgetown. The most prominent

example Johnson cites is Ilya Shapiro who, days before he was slated to join the university’s law

faculty as senior lecturer and Executive Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution,

Tweeted the following concerning the last Supreme Court vacancy: “Objectively best pick for

Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of being

first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll

get lesser black woman.” SAC ¶¶ 152–155. The complaint also points to Bruce Hoffman

(tenured professor and Director of Georgetown’s Center for Jewish Civilization), who allegedly

compared Northern Virginia’s infrastructure to “Mogadishu” and claimed TikTok was “turning a

whole generation into anti-Semites”; Danielle Pletka (adjunct professor at SFS), who allegedly

10

Moreover, though Johnson draws attention to incidents implicating her Palestinian

identity, her allegations of race and religious discrimination are not “‘squarely and distinctly’

spelled out in the[] pleadings,” and “passing references” to discrimination on a protected ground

“without developed circumstance or sufficient context are insufficient.” Shanks v. Int’l Union of

Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, 134 F.4th 585, 597 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (citation omitted).

23

labeled critics of Israel as “terrorist sympathizers” and “insubordinate morons”; and Yonatan

Green (a “Fellow” at the university), who allegedly labeled Palestinian narratives of

displacement as “baseless victimhood.” Id. ¶¶ 156–65.

One well-accepted way for a plaintiff to establish a reasonable inference of invidious bias

without direct evidence of discrimination is to demonstrate “dissimilar treatment of a similarly

situated comparator without the protected characteristic.” Bilal v. Metro. Police Dep’t, 25-cv-

189 (JEB), 2025 WL 1917959, at *3 (D.D.C. July 11, 2025); see also Brady v. Off. of Sergeant

at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 495 (D.C. Cir. 2008); Townsend v. United States, 236 F. Supp. 3d 280,

307 (D.D.C. 2017); Walker v. McCarthy, 170 F. Supp. 3d 94, 107–08 (D.D.C. 2016).

In their briefs, Johnson and Georgetown disagreed about the legal standard for assessing

this type of “comparator theory” of liability. But having been prompted by a minute order from

the Court, both sides acknowledged at the motions hearing that they had overlooked a recent

D.C. Circuit decision that clarifies the appropriate framework here. In Joyner v. Morrison &

Foerster LLP, the Circuit expressly rejected the notion that a plaintiff must plead that her

employment situation is “nearly identical” in all “relevant respects” to the comparator, as the

standard thus articulated “overstates [the] plaintiff’s burden at the pleading stage.” 140 F.4th

523, 529–30 (D.C. Cir. 2025).11 “The ‘nearly identical’ standard is the one our cases prescribe

for summary judgment or at trial,” explained the court, “once plaintiffs have had the benefit of

discovery.” Id. at 530. “At the pleading stage, the standard set out by the Supreme Court in

Twombly and Iqbal is the lodestar,” meaning that “a plaintiff proceeding on only a comparator

11

Although Joyner is a section 1981 case, and Title VII and section 1981 have distinct

causation standards, see generally Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of Afr. Am.-Owned Media, 589

U.S. 327, 341 (2020), their precedents are often referenced interchangeably in the comparator-

theory context. Indeed, Joyner itself cites several seminal Title VII comparator cases.

24

theory must plead enough facts about those comparators and the relevant context to allow a

plausible inference that he was treated differently because of” the protected identity. Id. And

“[t]hat standard cannot be reduced to a mechanical formula; it is sensitive to the specific context

of each case, and courts must draw on their ‘judicial experience and common sense’ in

determining whether it is met.” Id. (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679).

Recognizing the malleability of this standard, Joyner elaborates further on its “outer

bounds,” id. at 531:

At one extreme, it cannot be enough to simply allege that the plaintiff was treated

differently from a similarly situated comparator, without additional allegations

showing the comparators are in fact similarly situated in some meaningful respect.

That would be a threadbare recital of a legal conclusion, devoid of further factual

enhancement. At the other pole, as noted, [the Circuit] ha[s] never required a

complaint to include factual allegations showing that the comparator’s

circumstances are nearly identical to the plaintiff’s in all relevant respects.

Id. (cleaned up). At root, “the question is always whether there are enough facts pleaded to make

it ‘plausible,’ as opposed to just ‘speculative,’ to infer that a defendant was motivated by the

plaintiff’s [protected characteristic] rather than the myriad other reasons that might affect an

employment decision.” Id. (citation omitted).

In Joyner’s own case, an inference of improper bias was not borne out by comparisons

with his colleagues. Joyner alleged that he was racially discriminated against by a legal staffing

agency and the law firm where he was placed because he was not assigned to a “workstream” for

over two months after starting at the firm, whereas white attorneys were given assignments

without delay. Id. at 528. The Circuit concluded that Joyner had not pleaded enough facts to

make an inference of discrimination plausible. The complaint “include[d] no information about

the other attorneys’ experience or qualifications relative to Joyner’s[,]” did not “allege that they

were placed through” Joyner’s staffing agency, and did not indicate that the attorneys who were

25

placed through the staffing agency “worked on his project, or a similar project[.]” Id. at 532.

Not did the complaint make clear what a workstream even was, “how many there were, or what

would make someone qualified for a workstream assignment[.]” Id. And critically, the

complaint did not “allege that the same supervisor or supervisors were responsible for deciding

whether to place him and the other attorneys on a workstream[,]” which is clearly “relevant to

whether two employees were similarly situated[.]” Id. at 533. Though Joyner was not “required

to plead all of these facts in his complaint to survive a motion to dismiss[,]” the court reasoned,

his allegations about comparators were too “general” to “provide a meaningful benchmark

against which to assess whether” the firm’s treatment was motivated by racial animus. Id.

Applying the Joyner standard here, along with employee discipline-related precedents

emphasizing the importance of whether employees were “disciplined by the same supervisor”

and committed similar offenses, Townsend, 236 F. Supp. 3d at 307 (citing Burley v. Nat’l

Passenger Rail Corp., 801 F.3d 290, 301 (D.C. Cir. 2015)), the Court concludes that Johnson’s

complaint does not provide a “meaningful benchmark” for comparison, either.

Consider, first, Yonatan Green. Johnson alleges nothing about his position at the

university aside from the fact that he is a “Fellow”—not the school he is associated with, what he

does as a Fellow, what rank or level he is, or what qualifications or experience he has. Who

supervised Green, and why might his supervisors have opted not to discipline him? The Court

has no inkling. Indeed, the complaint does not even identify a time or set of circumstances under

which Green’s post was made or publicized to the wider university community.

Next, consider Danielle Pletka. The complaint alleges that she is an adjunct professor at

the Walsh School, which makes her marginally more similar to Johnson. But Pletka is a faculty

member, and Johnson was not, and the complaint offers no other basis for comparing their

26

positions, qualifications, experience, or tenure at SFS. While Pletka’s caustic social media post,

like Green’s, may be unbecoming of a responsible academic, the complaint provides no sense of

timing. Without knowing even when the post was made, the Court cannot infer that the decision

to leave Pletka be was made by the same decisionmakers who decided to terminate Johnson.

Bruce Hoffman is an ill-fitting comparator, as well. He is not only the director of a

separate academic center, but also a tenured faculty member, strongly suggesting that he and

Johnson have different ranks and rights as Georgetown employees. The complaint does not

compare the two in terms of position, qualification, or experience. Again, Johnson offers the

Court no grounds for inferring that the individuals who placed her on leave and then fired her

were the same as any officials who may have been involved in disciplinary decisions regarding

Mr. Hoffman. Indeed, Johnson has failed to allege that Georgetown was even aware of the

comments posted by Green, Pletka, and Hoffman, undermining the conclusion that the university

deliberately elected not to punish them.

Johnson’s strongest candidate for comparison is Shapiro, who made a racially charged

social media post in early 2022 shortly before starting his tenure as a senior lecturer and director

of an academic center at Georgetown’s law school. The post rattled campus enough to trigger an

investigation by Georgetown’s Human Resources and Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity,

and Affirmative Action (“IDEAA”). See SAC ¶ 182. According to the complaint, after a four-

month investigation, the university circulated an email explaining that its “Speech and

Expression Policy” protected Shapiro’s Tweet and that he was “not properly subjected to

discipline for” Tweets that predated his employment with the university. SAC ¶¶ 154, 182.

Nevertheless, IDEAA and HR found that Shapiro’s Tweets “had a significant negative impact on

the Georgetown Law community, including current and prospective students, alumni, staff, and

27

faculty,” and therefore “recommended” that the university “put in place actions to address” that

“negative impact.” Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E at 8.

Shapiro and Johnson are similarly-situated in some respects. Within the span of two

years, both occupied administrative positions that involved extensive interaction with students,

alumni, faculty, and staff.12 Prior to starting their respective positions at Georgetown, both

posted distasteful content on social media that came to light just as they were slated to start their

jobs. Their posts upset large swathes of the campus community.

Now for the differences. Shapiro and Johnson worked at different schools and occupied

different positions with different responsibilities. Shapiro was executive director of an academic

center, whereas Johnson was an administrator for a particular degree program. Shapiro also

joined the faculty as a lecturer, whereas Johnson does not allege having a faculty position or

teaching responsibilities. The complaint even suggests that Shapiro enjoyed “tenure

protections,” see SAC ¶ 433, although Johnson’s attorney walked back this allegation at the

motions hearing, Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 60:22–23.

Johnson also does not persuasively assert that the same decisionmakers or apparatuses

were responsible for the decisions to terminate her and not Shapiro. It is evident that

12

Compare Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. D at 1 (“The Assistant Director of

Academic and Faculty Affairs is required to interact with many different constituencies to

perform the essential functions of the position, including students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

Communicating carefully and thoughtfully is critical to developing good relationships with

stakeholders, and hence to success in this position.”), with Georgetown Praecipe, ECF No. 76,

Ex. A (June 2, 2022 Letter from Dean William M. Treanor to Ilya Shapiro) at 2 (“As a member

of the Law Center staff and the Executive Director of the Georgetown Center for the

Constitution, [Shapiro was] . . . responsible for . . . working with multiple diverse stakeholders . .

. expect[ed to] . . . interact with many different constituencies. Given the multi-faceted nature of

[the] role and the expectation that [Shapiro would] interact with many different constituencies as

[he] direct[ed] the Center, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, and donors, communicating

carefully and thoughtfully [wa]s critical to developing good relationships with stakeholders, and

hence to success as the Executive Director for the Center.”)

28

Georgetown Human Resources representatives investigated both Johnson and Shapiro once their

posts came to light. See SAC ¶ 182; Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E at 6.13 However, the

complaint suggests that Dean Hellman and Director Shambaugh were responsible for Johnson’s

firing, whereas the decision not to fire Shapiro appears to have been made by the law school’s

former dean, William Treanor, with recommendatory input by IDEAA and Human Resources.

See Georgetown Praecipe, ECF No. 76, Ex. A at 1–3.14 At the motions hearing, Johnson’s

counsel suggested that the Court could infer from the complaint that Human Resources—not

Hellman, Shambaugh, and Treanor—was the ultimate, common decisionmaker in both instances,

but could not identify any specific allegations in the complaint to substantiate that inference. See

Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 64:8–66:16.

Johnson’s complaint further maintains that Georgetown applied Human Resources Policy

#204 concerning probationary employment unevenly to Shapiro and Johnson. See SAC ¶ 171

(“Georgetown applied Policy #204 protectively to Shapiro . . . but punitively to Ms. Johnson.”).

But Johnson’s attorney conceded at the motions hearing that the university did not actually apply

Policy #204 to Shapiro. See Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 63:3–7. And upon review of that

policy, the Court notes that it “does not apply to senior level executive, senior level professional

and certain academic and administrative professional positions.” See Georgetown Praecipe, ECF

13

Johnson’s opposition brief asserts that IDEAA was also involved in investigating her

and recommending disciplinary action. See Omnibus Response at 31–32. But the complaint

does not allege as much, and a plaintiff may not supplement her pleadings with factual material

through her motion-to-dismiss briefing. Kingman Park Civic Ass’n v. Gray, 27 F. Supp. 3d 142,

168 (D.D.C. 2014).

14

The Court will take notice of Dean Treanor’s June 2, 2022 letter to Shapiro because it

is quoted in the complaint, see SAC ¶ 182, and is central to Johnson’s discrimination claims.

29

No. 76, Ex. B at 1.15 It thus strongly appears that Johnson and Shapiro were subject to discipline

under distinct human resources policies.

Having completed this compare-and-contrast exercise, the Court considers whether

Johnson and Shapiro are sufficiently similar that Georgetown’s treatment of Shapiro “provide[s]

a meaningful benchmark against which to assess whether” the university discriminated against

Johnson. Joyner, 140 F.4th at 533. Where, as here, there are some similarities and some

differences between a plaintiff and her potential comparator, courts must assess their relative

weight. Consider, for instance, the post-Joyner case CLASP v. Hassan, in which a plaintiff

(Hassan) accused his employer (CLASP) of discrimination after he received a lower severance

offer than at least one other terminated employee. No. 25-cv-1197 (BAH), 2025 WL 3062911

(D.D.C. Nov. 3, 2025). Hassan’s complaint identified a comparator who shared his job title,

worked at the company for a similar number of years, was terminated around the same time, and

was subject to the same standard severance package policy, but the comparator received a higher

severance offer and was not of the same race or religion as Hassan, thereby generating an

inference of class-based discrimination. Id. at *14. Although CLASP pointed out that Hassan

had failed to allege that the two did the same kind of work, shared a supervisor, or were

terminated for similar reason, the court did not find those deficiencies dispositive. “While

Hassan may need to supply more facts to ultimately prevail on his claim, alleging that CLASP

had a standard severance policy that was applied contemporaneously to another individual with

the same job and same approximate tenure but different protected characteristics is enough to

survive a motion to dismiss.” Id.

15

The Court will take notice of the full text of the probationary policy as it, too, is quoted

in the complaint, see, e.g., SAC ¶ 150, and is central to Johnson’s discrimination claims.

30

Similarly, in Rhone v. Rubio, a State Department’s employee’s supervisors informed her

that she had to resign as leader of a Black workplace affinity group because of a policy decision

made by her office’s leadership. No. 24-cv-3389 (RC), 2025 WL 3017791, at *1 (D.D.C. Oct.

28, 2025). Rhone later discovered that a white coworker was leading a women’s affinity group

at the Department, contrary to the directive given by office leadership and allegedly with their

express consent. Id. The court explained that although the bare assertion that one employee is

“similarly situated” to another is deficient, the complaint “contain[ed] just enough detail to

ground a reasonable inference” that the white coworker was an appropriate comparator because

she worked in the same office and “conceivably subject to the same [office] ‘policy decision’

pursuant to which” Rhone was forced to resign from her affinity group. Id. at *6.

By contrast, there are plenty examples where differences between plaintiffs and would-be

comparators overwhelm their similarities, negating any inference of discrimination. Take, for

instance, Hicks v. DC Water & Sewer Auth., No. 24-cv-2288 (TJK), 2025 WL 2439161 (D.D.C.

Aug. 25, 2025). In that case, a sanitation worker accused his employer of unduly delaying his

recommended promotion due to his race, color, and age. Id. at *1. Hicks’s complaint alleged

only that his white comparators were at the same government grade and were recommended for

promotion at the same time and in the same batch of candidates, but were given almost twenty

percent salary increases without delay. Id. at *3. But Hicks did not allege that the comparators

held the same position he did, had the same responsibilities or supervisors as him, or were up for

the same type of promotion as him. Hicks thus did not provide a sufficient “factual basis” for the

conclusion that he and the white coworkers were similarly situated. Id.16

16

See also, e.g., Townsend, 236 F. Supp. 3d at 307–08; Ayvazian v. Collins, No. 24-cv-

2804 (JEB), 2025 WL 1795037, at *5–6 (D.D.C. June 30, 2025); Dagdagan v. Driscoll, No. 23-

cv-3935 (APM), 2025 WL 3033726, *2–3 (D.D.C. Oct. 30, 2025).

31

These touchpoints in mind, the Court concludes that Shapiro is not so similar to Johnson

to generate a reasonable inference that she was treated differently than him because of her race,

religion, or national origin. Even if Shapiro and Johnson’s Tweets were comparably offensive to

some segment of the Georgetown community—a question on which the Court declines to

venture an opinion—the only other similarities between them were that they had outward-facing

job duties and were both subjected to an HR investigation after causing consternation on campus

by their online activity.

On the other side of the ledger, the differences are numerous. Johnson and Shapiro

worked at different schools, and their job titles, qualifications, and experience differ materially.

The Court cannot surmise from the complaint that Johnson and Shapiro’s employment outcomes

were dictated by the same ultimate decisionmakers, nor that they were subjected to the same

disciplinary policy for probationary employees. Johnson and Shapiro are thus more like the

proposed comparators in Hicks, whose shared characteristics were swamped by several other

variables that precluded an inference of disparate treatment, than those in CLASP or Rhone.

Johnson may genuinely believe “she got something of a raw deal” because Georgetown

punished her for offensive college-era Tweets but let Shapiro off the hook because his own

insulting posts pre-dated his employment. Moreno-Livini v. AFL-CIO Hous. Invest. Tr., No. 24-

cv-1392 (JEB), 2024 WL 4144112, at *4 (D.D.C. Sep. 11, 2024). Despite the arguable

inconsistency, Johnson’s complaint needed to “plausibly isolate her protected characteristics” as

the pivotal difference between her and Shapiro. Id. She failed to do so, each difference between

them “mak[ing] it less plausible” to infer discrimination. Joyner, 140 F.4th at 533.

***

32

Summing up, neither Johnson’s circumstantial allegations of discrimination nor her

comparator theory of liability is sufficient to save her disparate treatment claim. Needless to say,

“at the motion to dismiss stage, a plaintiff need not rule out every possible lawful explanation”

for the employer’s adverse action—but she is obliged to “dispel any obvious alternative

explanations.” Ho v. Garland, 106 F.4th 47, 54 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (citation and alterations

omitted). Johnson’s complaint fails to dispel the obvious explanation that she was suspended

and then fired due to her spiteful and profane social media posts, rather than her race, religion, or

national origin. Her Title VII disparate treatment claim is dismissed.

b. Hostile Work Environment and Retaliation

Johnson also brings Title VII hostile work environment and retaliation claims against

Georgetown. The university has moved to dismiss these claims on procedural and substantive

grounds. Johnson’s claims fall short on both fronts.

i. Procedural Issues

“Title VII requires that a plaintiff exhaust her administrative remedies prior to bringing a

civil action in federal court.” Morgenhan v. Shinseki, 630 F. Supp. 2d 56, 59 (D.D.C. 2009). “A

plaintiff fails to exhaust her administrative remedies when the complaint she files in federal court

includes a claim that was not raised in the administrative complaint.” Id. at 60. “Naturally every

detail of the eventual complaint need not be presaged in the EEOC filing[.]” Marshall v. Fed.

Express Corp., 130 F.3d 1095, 1098 (D.C. Cir. 1997). And courts do not require a plaintiff to

check a specific box or “use specific ‘magic words’ in order to exhaust” a particular claim in the

administrative forum. Congress v. District of Columbia, 324 F. Supp. 3d 164, 171 (D.D.C.

2018) (Cooper, J.). The question is instead whether the plaintiff’s administrative charge could be

33

“reasonably expected upon investigation” to “lead” to the kind of claim she later raises in her

complaint. Id. (quoting Park v. Howard Univ., 71 F.3d 904, 908 (D.C. Cir. 1995)).17

Here, Johnson’s EEOC filing could not reasonably expected to lead to either hostile work

environment or retaliation claims. Her charge “reads like a textbook example of” disparate

treatment: “Nowhere does [Johnson] reference the hallmarks of a hostile work environment

claim, such as harassment from coworkers or insulting or disparaging comments. Nor does [her]

narrative description indicate a continued pattern of conduct as is typical of a hostile work

environment claim.” Id. The only pattern described in the charge is Georgetown’s supposed

“pattern of giving ‘passes’ to its white professors who engage in Islamophobic rhetoric.”

Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E at 12. But that alleged conduct substantiates the disparate

treatment claim, putting neither Georgetown nor the EEOC on notice of an abusive work

environment that extends beyond the university’s disciplinary decisions.

The facts in the administrative charge also could not be reasonably expected to give rise

to a retaliation claim. Although Johnson’s EEOC filing mentions her November 8 letter, and

alleges (as does the complaint) that “Georgetown did not heed” her warning that Canary Mission

was an “anti-Arab and anti-Muslim” platform, Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. E at 6, it

nowhere suggests that the decision to place Johnson on leave and then terminate her constituted

17

There has been some suggestion in the case law that Park’s “like or reasonably

expected” exception to Title VII’s exhaustion requirements did not survive the Supreme Court’s

decision in Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002). See, e.g., Davis v. FBI,

No. 25-5061, 2025 WL 2982518, at *1 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 16, 2025). Courts in this district have

adopted different approaches. See Hicklin v. McDonald, 110 F. Supp. 3d 16, 20 (D.D.C. 2015)

(Cooper, J.). As the D.C. Circuit has continued to apply the Park standard in some instances,

see, e.g., Davis, 2025 WL 2982518, at *1, the Court will follow suit here. In any case, the choice

of “one interpretation over the other” is not consequential here because even under the more

generous approach, Johnson’s additional Title VII claims fail. Hicklin, 110 F. Supp. 3d at 20.

34

reprisal for Title VII-protected conduct. Again, the EEOC charge “provides little if any notice

that [Johnson] intended to bring” a retaliation claim. Congress, 324 F. Supp. 3d at 171.

ii. Merits Issues

Even if these two claims were duly exhausted, they would not survive dismissal. Johnson

has not alleged a valid hostile work environment claim, which requires showing that an employer

subjected the plaintiff to “discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently

severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment[.]” Shanks v. Int’l Union

of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, 134 F.4th 585, 597 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (cleaned up). In

assessing such a claim, “the court looks to all the circumstances, including the frequency of the

discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere

offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work

performance.” Id. (cleaned up).

Johnson identifies a few “illustrative examples” of harassment that prevented her from

doing her job. See generally SAC ¶¶ 247–263. She points to faculty “interrogat[ion]” and

discussion of the war in Gaza at her welcome lunch—but as explored above, the Court cannot

reasonably infer that her colleagues’ purported comments constituted anything more than “mere

offensive utterance[s,]” even when viewed in the light most favorable to Johnson. Shanks, 134

F.4th at 597. Johnson also reiterates that she was placed “on administrative leave without due

process or adequate explanation following a coordinated online doxing and harassment campaign

based on [her] protected characteristics.” SAC ¶ 249. But the allegation that the university’s

disciplinary decision was motivated by discriminatory animus is “undercut by the legitimate

reasons” raised in Dean Hellman’s email to the SFS community and her eventual termination

letter. Baloch v. Kempthorne, 550 F.3d 1191, 1201 (D.C. Cir. 2008). And while the Court does

35

not doubt that Johnson faced harsh backlash from strangers after her posts came to light, see,

e.g., SAC ¶¶ 146; 396, she does not allege that Georgetown had any influence over those

communications, nor any particular legal duty to intervene. Cf. Thomas v. Securiguard Inc., 412

F. Supp. 3d 62 (D.D.C. 2019) (“In determining whether an employer should be responsible for a

hostile work environment caused by a non-employee, courts consider the extent of the

employer's control over the harasser and any other legal responsibility which the employer may

have with respect to the conduct of the non-employees.” (citations omitted)); see also Fragola v.

Kenific Group, Inc., No. 21-cv-1423 (RDM), 2022 WL 1908824, at *6 (D.D.C. June 3, 2022).

Johnson also takes issue with Dean Hellman’s November 2 email to the SFS community,

which, she submits, “falsely implied Ms. Johnson posed a ‘security threat’ by stating ‘We take

all threats to our community seriously,’ thereby branding her as dangerous to the entire academic

community.’” SAC ¶ 250. But Johnson overreads the email. See Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss,

Ex. B. Her insistence that the email is “defamatory” and “amplified false accusations of

antisemitism, hate, and violence” finds no support in her factual assertions and the documents

that the Court may consult at this stage. SAC ¶ 251.18

18

Dean Hellman’s email does label Johnson’s posts as “hateful” and “antisemitic[.]” See

Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. B at 1. As to the former label, whatever the context

surrounding Johnson’s Tweets, it is uncontroverted that her posts conveyed her “hat[red]” for

Zionists, at least at the time. SAC ¶¶ 89–90. So that shoe fits. As to the latter label, the parties

hotly contest whether Johnson’s posts were anti-Zionist only, or also antisemitic, either

inherently or in context. The Court will not, and need not, try to answer this vexing question,

except only to note that the unflattering photograph Johnson Tweeted of the Orthodox Jewish

man does not appear to single out Zionism. In any case, the only relevant question for present

purposes is whether it was reasonable—or alternatively, baseless and potentially indicative of

invidious bias—for Dean Hellman to construe the posts as antisemitic. Even if reasonable minds

could differ on the “antisemitic” characterization, Hellman was entitled to interpret the Tweets as

such without running afoul of Johnson’s Title VII rights.

36

To be sure, “[a] hostile work environment is usually characterized by a series of events

that cumulatively give rise to a claim,” and “each individual component might not be actionable

on its own.” Craig v. District of Columbia, 881 F. Supp. 2d 26, 32 (D.D.C. 2012). But even

viewed cumulatively, Johnson’s “illustrative examples” do not demonstrate the kind of severe or

pervasive mistreatment that gives rise to a colorable hostile work environment claim.

Johnson also fails to state a Title VII retaliation claim. To do so, “a plaintiff must

plausibly allege that (1) she engaged in statutorily protected activity, (2) she suffered a materially

adverse action by her employer, and (3) the two are causally connected.” Spence v. U.S. Dep’t

of Veterans Affs., 109 F.4th 531, 539 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (cleaned up). Johnson falters on the first

and third elements.

To make out a retaliation claim, a plaintiff must first establish that she has engaged in

activity that Title VII protects—i.e., that she has “opposed . . . an unlawful employment practice”

or “made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation,

proceeding or hearing.” Howard R.L. Cook & Tommy Shaw Found. for Black Empl. Of the Lib.

of Cong., Inc. v. Billington, 737 F.3d 767, 772 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–3a).

Insofar as Johnson’s complaint suggests that her old Tweets qualify as statutorily protected

activity under Title VII, see, e.g. SAC ¶ 321, that position defies logic. The posts reflect

Johnson’s personal opinions as a college student and could not possibly qualify as opposition to

an unlawful employment practice at Georgetown years later.

The only activity detailed in the complaint that could qualify as Title VII-protected is

Johnson’s November 8 letter. Yet pinpointing that “statutorily protected activity” creates a

causation problem for Johnson. The November 8 letter cannot be causally connected to Johnson

being placed on administrative leave, as her letter post-dated that disciplinary action. Nor can

37

the Court infer that Johnson’s eventual termination was reprisal for her November 8 letter: She

has alleged no facts to suggest that the outcome of the investigation hinged in any way on her

letter, nor has she “dispelled” the “obvious alternative explanation” that she was terminated

based on the content of her Tweets. Ho, 106 F.4th at 54 (citation and alterations omitted).

Because Johnson’s Title VII hostile work environment and retaliation claims against

Georgetown are unexhausted and well shy of the pleading threshold, they must be dismissed.

2. Section 1981

The Court now turns to Johnson’s discrimination claim against Georgetown, Dean

Hellman, Director Shambaugh, and Wolff under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, “which protects ‘the equal

right . . . to make and enforce contracts without respect to race.’” Joyner, 140 F.4th at 529

(quoting Domino’s Pizza, Inc v. McDonald, 546 U.S. 470, 474 (2006)). To prevail on her claim,

Johnson must “initially plead and ultimately prove that, but for race, [she] would not have

suffered the loss of a legally protected right.” Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of Afr. Am.-Owned

Media, 589 U.S. 327, 341 (2020). Although Section 1981 imposes a more stringent causation

standard than Title VII, see id. at 336–41, courts generally use the “same framework for

determining whether unlawful discrimination occurred” in Section 1981 and Title VII cases.

Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae, 712 F.3d 572, 576 (D.C. Cir. 2013).

The question, at this stage, is whether Johnson has “allege[d] some facts” to demonstrate

that race was the reason for the relevant conduct; she “cannot merely ‘invoke [her] race in the

course of a claim’s narrative.’” Doe #1 v. Am. Fed. Of Gov’t Emp., 554 F. Supp. 3d 75, 102

(D.D.C. 2021) (quoting Bray v. RHT, Inc., 748 F. Supp. 3, 5 (D.D.C. 1990), aff’d sub nom. Bray

v. Hebble, 976 F.2d 45 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). The Court has already answered this question as to

Georgetown. Indeed, as noted above, Johnson’s allegations of race discrimination fall especially

38

short because they read more like “passing references without developed circumstance or

sufficient context[.]” Shanks, 134 F.4th at 597.

With respect to Dean Hellman and Director Shambaugh, “individual employees can only

be held liable for section 1981 violations if they are personally involved in the discrimination by

having directly participated in the alleged discriminatory acts.” Doe #1, 554 F. Supp. 3d at 101.

Johnson’s section 1981 claims against Hellman and Shambaugh fail because the allegations in

her complaint do not give rise to a reasonable inference that she was terminated on the basis of

her race. And, as the Court has already explained, allegations about Hellman’s November 2

email to the SFS community and Shambaugh’s conduct at Johnson’s welcome lunch do not

move the needle on her discrimination claims.

Wolff also cannot be liable under section 1981, so the Court dismisses that count as well.

Assume, for the moment, that Johnson sufficiently alleged the university did discriminate against

her based on her race. The complaint makes conclusory assertions that Wolff, for her part,

“targeted” Johnson “for a racially motivated viral harassment campaign of hate (with millions of

views) specifically because of her visible Palestinian and African American identity” and

“weaponized Canary Mission’s racially motivated cyberstalking profile to activate the online

Zionist network to destroy Ms. Johnson’s employment prospects[.]” SAC ¶¶ 359–60. But

stripping back the rhetoric, the facts alleged in the complaint tell a far less florid story: Wolff

searched Johnson online when she learned of her graduate school’s new hire, saw content that

seriously offended her, and took to the Internet to complain about it. By Johnson’s own

admission, Wolff was a student at the university, “not an employee, agent, officer or supervisor,”

who “possessed no authority whatsoever over Georgetown’s employment decisions and acted

entirely outside any official capacity.” Omnibus Response at 97.

39

Against this factual backdrop, Johnson’s section 1981 claim against Wolff founders on

multiple shoals. To begin, in the employment context, some courts have held that a section 1981

claim cannot lie against an individual defendant who lacks supervisory authority over the

plaintiff. See, e.g., Daniel v. Johns Hopkins Univ., 118 F. Supp. 3d 312, 317 (D.D.C. 2015).

Even if such a claim were available, Johnson’s allegations—coupled with the concession that

Wolff had no influence over Georgetown’s employment decisions—undercut the possibility that

she was “personally involved in the discrimination by having directly participated in the alleged

discriminatory act[]” of terminating Johnson. Doe #1, 554 F. Supp. 3d at 101 (cleaned up). And

even if Wolff did have some role in Georgetown’s decision, the complaint proffers no concrete

facts to suggest that she was motivated by racial animus. Her Tweets instead reflect

understandable concern about the content of Johnson’s posts and disbelief that Georgetown had

not noticed them sooner.

For the foregoing reasons, the Court will dismiss the section 1981 claims against

Georgetown, Dean Hellman, Director Shambaugh, and Ms. Wolff.

3. Section 1985(3)

Johnson next brings a civil rights conspiracy claim against all the defendants under 42

U.S.C. § 1985(3). To state a claim under section 1985(3), Johnson must allege:

(1) a conspiracy; (2) for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any

person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, . . . and (3) an act in

furtherance of the conspiracy; (4) whereby a person is either injured in her person

or property or deprived of any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States.

Martin v. Malhoyt, 830 F.2d 237, 258 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (cleaned up). In a civil conspiracy, the

“principal element . . . is an agreement between the parties to inflict a wrong against or injury

upon another an overt act that results in damage.” Bush v. Butler, 521 F. Supp. 2d 63, 68

(D.D.C. 2007) (quoting Brady v. Livingood, 360 F. Supp. 2d 94, 104 (D.D.C. 2004)). It is not

40

enough that the defendants conspired to interfere with Johnson’s rights; they must also have been

motivated by invidious discrimination. Martin, 830 F.2d at 258.

Across the motions to dismiss, the defendants raise various preliminary arguments as to

why the claim ought to be tossed out—including that the claim is time-barred as to certain

defendants; that it is categorically unavailable to Johnson based on Supreme Court precedent;

and that conspiracy liability here would run afoul of the First Amendment. The Court need not

spill ink on these points because Johnson plainly fails to allege two core elements of conspiracy.

First, Johnson has not alleged “an actual agreement amongst the defendants, which is the

essence of a conspiracy; that is, nothing in the complaint even hints at ‘the existence of any

events, conversations, or documents indicating that there ever was an agreement or meeting of

the minds’ amongst the defendants to violate her rights based on her membership in a protected

class.’” Barber v. District of Columbia Government, 394 F. Supp. 3d 49, 66 (D.D.C. 2019)

(quoting McManus v. District of Columbia, 530 F. Supp. 2d 46, 75 (D.D.C. 2007)). “The term

‘conspiracy,’ particularly in the minds of non-lawyers,” tends to “conjure[] images of people

meeting secretly to hatch a plan to violate the law[,]” but there need not be “such a degree of

deliberation, formality or coordination.” Thompson v. Trump, 590 F. Supp. 3d 46, 96–97

(D.D.C. 2022). “Conspiracies can be, and often are, established with far less direct proof.” Id. at

97. That being said, the plaintiff must convey some sense that co-conspirators had a “mutual

understanding to try to accomplish a common and unlawful plan,” thereby “shar[ing] in the

general conspiratorial objective.” Id. (citation omitted). “In short, a civil conspiracy requires a

showing ‘that there was a single plan, the essential nature and general scope of which were

known to each person who is to be held responsible for its consequences.” Id. (citation omitted);

see also Black Lives Matter D.C. v. Trump, 544 F. Supp. 3d 15, 38 (D.D.C. 2021).

41

The complaint’s conspiracy count reads roughly as follows: Canary Mission’s donors

agreed to fund its nefarious activity; Canary Mission designed a damaging profile of Johnson

that aimed to tarnish her reputation among employers; Wolff and Shapiro agreed to amplify

Canary Mission’s profile by posting screenshots of it on social media and identifying Johnson’s

position and workplace; and the Georgetown Defendants responded to this harassment campaign

by agreeing to terminate Johnson. See SAC ¶¶ 371–75. But just because the complaint says that

everyone “agreed” does not mean they did. The Court “need not accept as true conclusory

allegations or legal assertions in a complaint,” and “[a] simple allegation of conspiracy fits that

bill.” Newman v. Howard Univ. School of Law, 715 F. Supp. 3d 86, 111 (D.D.C. 2024).

The complaint does not hint at any events, conversations, or documents that might reveal

an agreement between the ten defendants. There is no suggestion of a mutual understanding or

shared conspiratorial objective—particularly between the likes of Canary Mission, who

memorialized Johnson’s years-old Tweets, and the Georgetown Defendants, who ultimately

acted on that information based on an independent, internal disciplinary process. The Court can

glean no facts to suggest a single plan whose nature and scope was known to all involved.

Johnson asks the Court to infer coordination based on the temporal proximity of events

and other repackaged material from elsewhere in the complaint. See SAC ¶¶ 377–80, 389–95.

But at worst, the sequence of events reflects “lawful parallel conduct.” Newman, 715 F. Supp.

3d at 111 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557). And if Canary Mission’s profile of Johnson

dates back to 2015, the timeline of purportedly conspiratorial events is far more extended than

the complaint suggests, such that not even temporal proximity can support Johnson’s claim. All

things considered, the complaint’s patchwork of allegations cannot form a quilt of conspiracy

without being stitched together by substantial strands of speculation.

42

Second, Johnson fails to allege that the defendants were motivated by “some class-based,

invidiously discriminatory animus.” Graves v. United States, 961 F. Supp. 314, 322 (D.D.C.

1997). The Court has already concluded that Johnson has not made out any discrimination claim

against the Georgetown Defendants or Wolff. Thus, even if the Court were to accept Johnson’s

contention that Canary Mission targets people of color, see SAC ¶ 384, there cannot have been a

discriminatory motivation held by the larger group.

In conclusion, the § 1985(3) claim must be dismissed for failure to satisfy at least two

basic elements of the cause of action. “[I]f the lack of conspiracy were not itself dispositive, the

fact that” Johnson did not allege that all the defendants’ actions “were motivated by some form

of invidiously discriminatory animus” is “similarly fatal” to her claim. Ford v. Donovan, 891 F.

Supp. 2d 60, 65 (D.D.C. 2012).

4. DCHRA

The Court turns next to Johnson’s slate of DCHRA claims. The complaint’s failure to

state a Title VII claim largely eviscerates its claims under the local civil rights statute. But for

the sake of completeness, the Court will march through the procedural and substantive issues that

the DCHRA claims present.

a. Procedural Issues

Georgetown identifies two procedural problems with Johnson’s DCHRA claims. First, it

contends that the election of remedies doctrine precludes the claims because a civil rights

complainant cannot simultaneously pursue her discrimination claims in court and in D.C.’s

Office of Human Rights (“DCOHR”), and Johnson has not alleged that the DCOHR dismissed

her charge or that she withdrew it. Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss at 15–16. Johnson’s rejoinder

would seem to resolve the issue. “[T]he election of remedies doctrine does not bar [a plaintiff]

43

from filing [her] DCHRA claim” where the DCOHR has deferred jurisdiction to the EEOC

pursuant to its work-sharing agreement; such deferral “amount[s]” to a “dismissal” of the

administrative charge “on the grounds of administrative convenience.” Ibrahim v. Unisys Corp.,

582 F. Supp. 2d 41, 47 (D.D.C. 2008). In any case, Georgetown does not respond to Johnson’s

election of remedies argument in its reply, so the Court will treat the point as conceded.

Georgetown’s second procedural argument fares better. The school submits that the

DCHRA claims against Dean Hellman and Director Shambaugh as individuals are time-barred

because they were named in the complaint for the first time in April 2025, more than one year

after their allegedly discriminatory conduct, which the Court takes to be the operative DCHRA

statute of limitations at the relevant time. See D.C. Code § 2-1403.16(a) (2015).19 Johnson’s

response to this argument is not entirely clear, but she seems to suggest that the filing of the

administrative charge against the university, which “included allegations [about] both Hellman

and Shambaugh,” Omnibus Response at 104, tolled the one-year statute of limitations as to

Hellman and Shambaugh individually, see D.C. Code § 2-1403.16(a) (2023) (“The timely filing

of [an administrative] complaint . . . shall toll the running of the statute of limitations[.]”).

No one disputes that DCHRA liability may lie “against individuals in certain

circumstances when they meet the definition of ‘employer.’” Smith v. Café Asia, 598 F. Supp.

2d 45, 48 (D.D.C. 2009). But “[i]n this District, the general rule ‘is that individuals not named in

the EEOC charge may not be sued in a subsequent civil action unless they have been given

19

Effective March 21, 2025, a DCHRA plaintiff has two years, not one, to file her claim

in court. See D.C. Code § 2-1403.16(b)(1) (2025). No party has suggested that this new statute

of limitations applies retroactively to Johnson’s claims. Accord Valentine v. George Washington

Univ., No. 24-cv-1081 (RC), 2025 WL 2029802, at *5 n.5 (D.D.C. July 21, 2025) (“The D.C.

Council has recently established a two-year statute of limitations for DCHRA claims, but that

change does not apply retroactively.”).

44

actual notice of the EEOC proceeding or have an identity of interest with the party or parties

sued before the EEOC.’” Clay v. Howard Univ., 82 F. Supp. 3d 426, 433–34 (D.D.C. 2015)

(quoting EEOC v. Metzger, 824 F. Supp. 1, 3–4 (D.D.C. 1993)). Courts in the District have held

that “simply using” an individual defendant’s name or referring to them in an administrative

charge does not suffice to show actual notice. Id. at 434.

Johnson’s EEOC complaint mentions Dean Hellman and Director Shambaugh by title.

But it does not include any of the allegations that Johnson later relies on to substantiate her

charges of individual discrimination against them. Nor has Johnson argued that Hellman and

Shambaugh have an “identity of interest” with Georgetown so as to automatically impute the

university’s liability to them individually. That Johnson was represented by counsel before the

EEOC and DCOHR only reinforces the Court’s conclusion that the DCHRA claims against

Hellman and Shambaugh are time-barred. Cf. Clay, 82 F. Supp. 3d at 433 (courts may be more

inclined to view “procedural defect[s] with leniency” where a complainant has proceeded

without the aid of counsel at the administrative stage).

The statute of limitations argument is even more potent with respect to Wolff, who also

raises the time-bar as an affirmative defense. Wolff Mot. to Dismiss at 17–18. At the time of the

relevant events, Wolff was a Georgetown student. There is no reason to think she was on actual

notice of Johnson’s administrative complaint, nor that she has identity of interest with

Georgetown. The time bar thus precludes any DCHRA claim against her.

b. Merits Issues

The DCHRA claims against all but one defendant—Canary Mission, which has mounted

no independent defense at this stage—fall away based on the aforementioned statute of

limitations issues, as well as the jurisdictional defects described at the outset of this opinion.

45

Notwithstanding the time-bar, the Court will survey the merits of the DCHRA claims as to the

remaining defendants—though there is, in fact, relatively little left to explore. Disparate

treatment, hostile work environment, and retaliation claims brought under the DCHRA are

analyzed under the same frameworks as their Title VII and section 1981 counterparts. See, e.g.,

Williams v. Family Health Int’l, No. 24-cv-2654 (BAH), 2025 WL 2506580, at *6 (D.D.C. Sep.

2, 2025). These three DCHRA claims therefore meet the same fate as Johnson’s Title VII

claims.

That leaves the aiding and abetting claim, which Johnson asserts against all the

defendants. It fails as well, for multiple reasons. There is the obvious ground that aiding and

abetting liability will not lie where “the Court has found that no discriminatory acts occurred.”

Slate v. Pub. Def. Serv. for DC, 31 F. Supp. 3d 277, 301 (D.D.C 2014). And there is another

patent ground for dismissal of Georgetown: It cannot “plausibly have aided and abetted itself,”

the principal discriminator. McCaskill v. Gallaudet Univ., 36 F. Supp. 3d 145, 157 (D.D.C.

2014). The same may go for Dean Hellman and Director Shambaugh, although it is possible to

understand the complaint as characterizing the two as either the principal discriminators or as

abettors of discrimination. Cf. Richardson v. Petasis, 160 F. Supp. 3d 88, 138 (D.D.C. 2015)

(explaining that the D.C. Court of Appeals has recognized that partners of a law firm “could be

held individually liable under the DCHRA for both direct violations of the statute as ‘employers’

and for aiding and abetting the law firm’s discrimination”). In any event, as mentioned, the

claims against them are time-barred.

As to Wolff and Canary Mission, there are additional substantive hurdles that Johnson

fails to overcome. The DCHRA makes it an “unlawful discriminatory practice for any person to

aid, abet, invite, compel, or coerce the doing of any of the acts forbidden under the provisions of

46

this chapter or to attempt to do so.” D.C. Code § 2-1402.62. Although “the case law concerning

this provision . . . is underdeveloped,” Richardson, 160 F. Supp. 3d at 138, the D.C. Court of

Appeals defines an “aider or abettor” as “one who in some sort associates himself with the

venture, participates in it as something he wishes to bring about, and seeks by his action to make

it succeed,” Wallace v. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, 715 A.2d 873, 888 (D.C. 1998)

(cleaned up). Richardson “observe[d] that . . . the provision has never been applied to any

individual employees except for supervisors and upper management.” 160 F. Supp. 3d at 142.

Even if a third-party with no direct influence over Johnson’s employment could be held

liable for aiding and abetting, the complaint must “fairly allege[] that the[] defendant[]

participated in the discrimination and sought to make it succeed.” Id. Johnson’s complaint is

devoid of allegations giving rise to a reasonable inference that Wolff or Canary Mission sought

to have Johnson cashiered on the basis of her identity. To the extent Wolff wanted to see

Johnson fired, the complaint makes plain that her motivation was Johnson’s past-expressed

“hat[red]” for “Zio bitches.” SAC ¶ 89. The complaint also states that Canary Mission

“disproportionately focus[es] on people of color,” SAC ¶ 69, with approximately 80% of its

profiles targeting that demographic, id. ¶¶ 71, 232. But even if true, the statistic is not helpful,

under the “facts and circumstances” here, in discerning “whether th[is] particular plaintiff was

the victim of an illegitimately motivated employment decision.” Krodel v. Young, 748 F.2d 701,

710 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (citation omitted). In fact, Johnson’s attorney made clear at the motions

hearing that the “reason” Johnson “was targeted by Canary Mission . . . [was] because of her

position on Palestine and her opposition to the occupation, the apartheid and genocide that’s

happening in Palestine.” Mot. to Dismiss Hearing Tr. 67:3–8. Plenty of non-Palestinians, non-

Muslims, and non-African Americans appear to share that viewpoint.

47

In sum, the complaint does not allege a viable aiding and abetting claim. Along with the

other DCHRA claims, this claim must be dismissed.

C. Tort Claims

1. Breach of Contract

Moving to Johnson’s tort claims, the first is for breach of contract. She alleges that

Georgetown violated the terms of her employment contract when it terminated her because the

contract incorporated various obligations articulated in the university’s human resources policies.

This argument falls well short of the mark.

“There are four elements to a breach-of-contract claim in the District of Columbia: A

party must establish (1) a valid contract between the parties; (2) an obligation or duty arising out

of the contract; (3) a breach of that duty; and (4) damages caused by breach.” Inst. of

Multidimensional Med. v. Metagenics, Inc., 635 F. Supp. 3d 6, 13 (D.D.C. 2022) (cleaned up).

Under D.C. employment law, at-will employment is presumed. Daisley v. Riggs Bank, 372 F.

Supp. 2d 61, 67 (D.D.C. 2005). Lacking an enforceable obligation arising out of her contract, an

at-will employee is generally precluded from bringing a breach-of-contract claim on the basis of

her termination. See id. at 67–68. A plaintiff can rebut the at-will presumption, however, “by

showing that the parties intended that termination be subject to specific preconditions.” Leyden

v. Amer. Accred. Healthcare Comm’n, 83 F. Supp. 3d 241, 246 (D.D.C. 2015) (cleaned up).

“One way to do so is to show that the terms of a personnel manual or employee handbook create

contractual rights.” Id.

The parties appear to agree that Johnson’s October 2 offer letter is the relevant contract

here. See generally Georgetown Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. A. The letter expressly states that

Johnson’s “employment at Georgetown University is at-will.” Id. at 2. But in the same

48

paragraph, the offer letter states that Johnson “will be classified as and be subject to the

applicable policies and practices for regular staff employees, including those set forth in the

Human Resources Policies[,]” and “[i]n addition, [she] will be subject to applicable departmental

policies and practices.” Id. The letter further indicates that Johnson will be “on a probationary

status for the first six months of employment” and thus subject to the university’s “Probationary

Employment period policy.” Id. (emphasis omitted). Because the letter references other policies

that apply to Johnson’s employment, it at least raises the question whether Johnson could have

understood the university to be bound by any obligations incorporated in the letter. Cf. Leyden,

83 F. Supp. 3d at 246–47.

Still, there are two problems with Johnson’s position. For one thing, some of the policies

Johnson cites cannot possibly create the kind of “specific precondition” to termination that

undermines the otherwise-clear at-will nature of her employment. Policies that generally commit

Georgetown to diversity, as well as consistency and objectivity in supervisory decision-making,

see SAC ¶¶ 406, 408, are not concrete enough, nor do they have the kind of mandatory language

capable of creating an enforceable contractual obligation against the university. See, e.g.,

Vasquez v. Whole Foods Market, Inc., 302 F. Supp. 3d 36, 60–62 (D.D.C. 2018).

For another, even if Georgetown’s probationary policy created a “specific precondition”

to termination during the six-month probationary period, Georgetown has satisfied it. As already

noted, Human Resources Policy #204 provides that an employee will “[n]ormally . . . be allowed

to complete the probationary period before any decision is made to continue or end

employment.” SAC ¶ 403. This language alone imposes no obligation on Georgetown, but the

sentence that follows suggests some conditionality: “[I]f the department determines that

performance indicates that the employee cannot accomplish the job or if the department

49

determines that the individual’s behavior is unacceptable, the University may terminate

employment at any time during the probationary period.” Id.

Johnson’s termination letter conveyed that she was being fired under Policy #204. The

university explained that Johnson “engaged in unprofessional behavior” based on her posts and

“subsequent[ly] fail[ed] to address concerns raised by [her] social media activities.” Georgetown

Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. D at 1. Her “failure to acknowledge or address these posts and their impact

ha[d] a detrimental effect on the willingness of some members of the community to engage,” and

“raised concerns about [her] willingness to engage with these various constituencies in a

professional way.” Id. One needn’t read between the lines to discern that the university found

Johnson’s behavior “unacceptable” and determined she could not “accomplish the job,” thereby

satisfying the purported “precondition” embedded in the probation policy.20

Johnson has not identified any obligation or duty arising out of her employment contract

that Georgetown can be said to have violated. As a result, her breach of contract claim fails.

2. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress and False Light Invasion of

Privacy

Johnson also brings a pair of related tort claims against the Georgetown Defendants and

Wolff. She submits that they falsely portrayed her through their online communications and, in

so doing, engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct designed to cause her severe emotional

20

A quick word on Johnson’s attempt to repackage other allegations and insist that

Georgetown breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing present in all contracts.

See Omnibus Response at 79–80. Aside from the fact that Johnson did not plead such a claim in

her complaint, the facts she has alleged do not give rise to a reasonable inference of bad faith on

Georgetown’s part. A contracting party violates the implied covenant when it “evad[es] the

spirit of the contract, willfully render[s] imperfect performance or interfer[es] with the other

party’s performance.” Inst. of Multidimensional Medicine, 635 F. Supp. 3d at 13 (quoting Hais

v. Smith, 547 A.2d 986, 987 (D.C. 1988)). Johnson is hard-pressed to suggest that Georgetown

has engaged in any such conduct, especially since she has failed to state a discrimination claim.

50

distress. See generally SAC ¶¶ 425–443, 466–501. As with others the Court has considered,

these claims suffer from fatal deficiencies, both procedural and substantive in nature.

a. Statute of Limitations

Johnson’s intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”) and false light claims are

time-barred. “Under D.C. law, causes of action for which a limitation is not specifically

prescribed by statute are covered by a residual three-year limitations period.” Jovanovic v. US-

Algeria Business Council, 561 F. Supp. 2d 103, 113 (D.D.C. 2008) (citing D.C. Code § 12-

301(8)). “However, when a cause of action with no prescribed statute of limitations is

intertwined with one having a prescribed limitations period, District of Columbia courts apply

the prescribed period.” Id. (cleaned up). “A claim is ‘intertwined’ with another when it is

‘completely dependent’ on or essentially the same as another, and cannot survive as a separate,

independent cause of action.” Id. (citation omitted).

In her FAC, Johnson brought a defamation claim against all defendants, see ECF No. 1 at

120–21, which has a one-year statute of limitations, see Jovanovic, 561 F. Supp. 2d at 111 (citing

D.C. Code § 12-301(4)). Her SAC omits this claim, yet refers dozens of times to the defendants’

“defamatory” communications about her. See, e.g., SAC ¶ 13 (describing Dean Hellman as

having “published a defamatory email to 1,200+ students, faculty, and staff falsely implying Ms.

Johnson posed a security threat”); ¶ 15 (describing Wolff as having “spearheaded a targeted

harassment campaign of hate . . . via defamatory tweets”); ¶ 265 (alleging that “Dean Hellman

and Director Shambaugh amplified [harassment] through their defamatory emails”). The IIED

and false light counts specifically accuse Wolff and the Georgetown Defendants of having

damaged Johnson’s reputation based on false information. See, e.g., SAC ¶¶ 429–30 (Wolff’s

“broadcasting” of “defamatory material” destroyed Johnson’s “academic and professional

51

prospects”); ¶¶ 437–43 (describing Hellman and Shambaugh’s conduct as “baseless,” causing

her “permanent reputational damage through false association with antisemitism”).

In a general sense, IIED and false light invasion of privacy are standalone torts. They are

not necessarily coextensive with the tort of defamation, although the false light cause of action is

a close cousin. See, e.g., Moldea v. N.Y. Times Co., 15 F.3d 1137, 1151 (D.C. Cir. 1994);

Zimmerman v. Al Jazeera Am., LLC, 246 F. Supp. 3d 257, 274 (D.D.C. 2017).

Here, though, Johnson has “premised” her IIED and false light claims “directly” upon the

“allegation[s]” that the relevant communications were grossly misrepresentative and damaging to

her reputation. Jovanovic, 561 F. Supp. 2d at 114. These same allegations served as the

“linchpin” of Johnson’s earlier defamation claim and otherwise clearly sound in that tort. Id. As

such, the IIED and false light claims are not “independent enough” of the defendants’ allegedly

“false statements to be governed by a statute of limitations other than the one-year period” for

defamation. Mittleman v. United States, 104 F.3d 410, 417 (D.C. Cir. 1997); see also

Greenpeace, Inc. v. Dow Chem. Co., 97 A.3d 1053, 1062 (D.C. 2014). The intertwining doctrine

thus dooms both causes of action.

b. Merits Issues

Aside from being time-barred, the IIED and false light claims also fail on the merits. On

the IIED front, neither Wolff nor the Georgetown Defendants can be said to have engaged in

“extreme and outrageous conduct.” Goolsby v. District of Columbia, 354 F. Supp. 3d 69, 83

(D.D.C. 2019) (Cooper, J.) (citation omitted). To rise to this level, conduct must be “so

outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of

decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” Id.

(quoting Liser v. Smith, 254 F. Supp. 2d 89, 106 (D.D.C. 2003)). According to the facts alleged

52

in the complaint, Wolff expressed her strong disdain for her university’s new hire on social

media; her post went viral; and the new hire was terminated shortly thereafter. Far from

“outrageous” and “extreme,” such conduct has become, for better or worse, a mainstay of

campus life and beyond in the digital age. And the university’s swift investigation into a new

employee’s online activity hardly ventures beyond the bounds of decency. (Indeed, many would

have considered it outrageous had the school not run down the information it received.) Johnson

does plausibly allege that she has suffered serious emotional turmoil due to this maelstrom of

events, see, e.g., SAC ¶¶ 135, 442–43, but that does not mean that the re-publicization of her

own social media activity—however old—was beyond the pale.

Pivoting to the false light cause of action, the gravamen of Johnson’s claim is that Wolff

and the Georgetown Defendants falsely portrayed her as antisemitic. See generally SAC ¶¶ 473–

477. Unsurprisingly, making out a false light claim requires showing that the defendant has

published a “false statement, representation or imputation” that places the plaintiff in an

offensive, “false light[.]” Kumar v. George Wash. Univ., 174 F. Supp. 3d 172, 190 (D.D.C.

2016). As a conceptual matter, to prove that someone has been portrayed in offensively

misleading fashion, there must be some way of proving that the light was, in fact, false. The

same goes for defamation; “[t]o be actionable under D.C. defamation law, a statement must be,”

among other things, “provably false,” which in turn means that the statement is either “factual or,

if framed as an opinion, . . . impl[ies] a provably false fact or rel[ies] on facts that are provably

false.” Florio v. Gallaudet Univ., 119 F.4th 67, 77 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (cleaned up).

To be sure, there are some notable differences between defamation and false light

invasion of privacy. See Zimmerman, 246 F. Supp. 3d at 274–75; Restatement of Torts Second

§ 652E, cmt. b. But common to both torts is that “the matter published concerning the plaintiff is

53

not true.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E, cmt. a; see also id., cmt b. And it is important

for the torts to align on this element because “a plaintiff may not avoid the strictures . . .

associated with defamation by resorting to a claim of false light invasion.” Khodorkovskaya v.

Gay, 5 F.4th 80, 85 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). Johnson, who originally pled a

defamation claim before removing it from her SAC, cannot escape her burden to allege that the

contested communications painted her in a provably false light.

The question thus becomes whether Wolff’s accusation that Johnson is antisemitic or

Georgetown’s implication that Johnson’s Tweets might be antisemitic is provably false. This

might have been a delicate knot to untangle had the D.C. Circuit not recently answered the same

question in Florio. In that case, the Circuit emphasized its long-standing observation that

“politically charged epithets are often protected opinions lacking sufficient factual content to be

provably false,” both for the purposes of defamation and in the context of the First Amendment.

119 F.4th at 77. Affirming this Court, the Circuit went on to hold that the accusation that

someone is “anti-Semitic,” like the accusation that someone is “racist” or “fascist,” is generally

not actionable because it is too imprecise, open to debate, and thus not provably false. The

Circuit further found it relevant that the charges of antisemitism in Florio were based on a

photograph that “provid[ed] factual context that ‘readers [could] easily judge . . . for

themselves.’” Id. at 77–78.

Applying Florio, the Court is bound to conclude that Wolff’s Tweets and the Georgetown

Defendants’ contested communications are not actionable under the false light tort. The

defendants’ statements were “opinions based on facts not provably false.” Id. at 78.

Furthermore, Wolff’s Tweets included screenshots of posts that Johnson does not deny making,

leaving social media users free to “judge . . . for themselves” the accuracy of Wolff’s accusation.

54

To sum up, Johnson has failed to state plausible IIED and false light claims, both because

her claims are time-barred and because she fails to allege a crucial element of each tort.

3. Tortious Interference with Contract

Finally, Johnson alleges that Wolff tortiously interfered with her contract with

Georgetown by targeting her online, accusing her of being antisemitic, and thereby pressuring

the university to terminate her.

As an initial matter, Wolff posits that the tortious interference claim, like the IIED and

false light claims, is time-barred. Her intertwining argument is less persuasive here, however,

because Johnson’s tortious interference claim could conceivably stand even if Wolff’s social

media posts were not allegedly defamatory. According to the complaint, Wolff meddled in

Johnson’s contractual relationship with Georgetown, and that meddling does not necessarily rest

on any purported falsehood. Cf. Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 244 (D.C. Cir. 2002)

(tortious interference claim not intertwined with defamation claim because defendant interfered

“through conduct other than defamation”). At the same time, what really seems to perturb

Johnson is Wolff’s accusation that she is antisemitic: The complaint’s tortious interference count

casts Wolff’s Tweets as “defamatory” and reputationally damaging. See SAC ¶¶ 448.

The Court concludes that Wolff has not demonstrated that the claim is so “clearly

intertwined” with a defamation claim that it should be subjected to the same one-year statute of

limitation. Jovanovic, 561 F. Supp. 2d at 115. It is instead subject to D.C.’s residual three-year

statute of limitations that applies when a deadline is not otherwise prescribed. See D.C. Code §

12-301(8).21 The tortious interference claim thus remains timely.

21

In her reply brief, Wolff insists that Johnson has conceded this point. See Wolff Reply

Br. at 5. The Court will not treat the point as conceded because Johnson’s brief maintains that all

55

Chugging along, “[u]nder D.C. law, a prima facie case of tortious interference with a

contract or business relationship requires (1) existence of a valid contractual or other business

relationship; (2) the defendant’s knowledge of the relationship; (3) intentional interference with

that relationship by the defendant; and (4) resulting damages.” Easaw v. Newport, 253 F. Supp.

3d 22, 32 (D.D.C. 2017) (cleaned up). Wolff suggests that tortious interference claims are

categorically unavailable to at-will employees. See Wolff Mot. to Dismiss at 17 n.6. Not quite.

The D.C. Court of Appeals has clarified that “D.C. law permits claims for tortious interference

with an at-will employment relationship[,]” at least against “third parties.” Easaw, 253 F. Supp.

3d at 42 (citing Newmyer v. Sidwell Friends Sch., 128 A.3d 1023, 1039–40 (D.C. 2015)).

The precise contours of the prima facie case are nevertheless hazy. For instance, it is not

entirely clear whether tortious interference requires a breach of contract—which the Court has

already concluded there wasn’t—or whether the claim might instead entail a mere “failure of

performance, whether by the terms of the contract in question or not.” Casco Marina Dev., LLC

v. DC Redevelop. Land Agency, 834 A.2d 77, 84 (D.C. 2003); see also Intelsat USA Sales Corp.

v. Juch-Tech, Inc., 935 F. Supp. 2d 101, 115–16 (D.D.C. 2013) (explaining conflict between

Casco and Murray v. Wells Fargo Home Mortg., 953 A.2d 308, 326 (D.C. 2008)), as to whether

breach of contract is an essential element of the tort). And contrary to Wolff’s suggestion and

some older district court case law, see Wolff Mot. to Dismiss at 16–17; Sheppard v. Dickstein,

Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky, 59 F. Supp. 2d 27, 34 (D.D.C. 1999), the D.C. Circuit has suggested

that a plaintiff need not allege interference “through egregious means”—for example, through

the tort claims are timely, see Omnibus Response at 106, notwithstanding that she does not

specifically re-argue that the tortious interference claim is timely.

56

libel, slander, coercion, fraud, misrepresentation, or disparagement—to survive a motion to

dismiss. Banneker Ventures, LLC v. Graham, 798 F.3d 1119, 1136 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

The parties’ failure to address these doctrinal wrinkles in their briefing complicates the

Court’s effort to determine whether Johnson has made out her prima facie case—an endeavor

rendered even trickier by Johnson’s somewhat tenuous showing of causation. The complaint

asserts that Georgetown relied on Wolff’s Tweets in deciding to terminate Johnson. See, e.g.,

SAC ¶¶ 183, 201, 211. This conclusion seems to be predicated on an assumption that

Georgetown’s administrators were specifically made aware of Wolff’s posts, an assumption

which may be fair but is never quite spelled out. Furthermore, weeks elapsed between Wolff’s

Tweets and Johnson’s termination, during which time Georgetown’s investigatory machinery

was in motion; it is not apparent that Wolff communicated her concerns to any administrator, let

alone that she participated in this process. This gap attenuates the causal relationship between

Wolff’s communications and Georgetown’s ultimate employment decision.

In any event, the Court need not resolve these question marks because Johnson’s claim

fails in another decisive way. Even if Wolff’s conduct qualifies as intentional interference with

Johnson’s contract and proximately caused her termination, it was not improper or wrongful.

Rather, her communications were “legally justified or privileged,” which renders them

inactionable. Onyeoziri v. Spivok, 44 A.3d 279, 287 (D.C. 2012) (cleaned up); see also Sorrells

v. Garfinckel’s, Brooks Bros., Miller & Rhoads, Inc., 565 A.2d 285, 290 (D.C. 1989) (explaining

that calling conduct “improper” for tortious interference purpose’s “is simply another way of

saying that the alleged tortfeasor’s conduct” is not “legally justified”).22

22

The propriety of a defendant’s interference is an affirmative defense, rather than a

prima facie element of tortious interference. Econ. Rsch. Serv., Inc. v. Resolution Econ., LLC,

208 F. Supp. 3d 219, 230 n.12 (D.D.C. 2016); see also Close It! Title Servs., Inc. v. Nadel, 248

57

D.C. law follows the Restatement (Second) of Torts in “determining whether interference

with a contract is ‘improper[.]’” Sorrells, 565 A.2d at 290. Courts must consider several factors,

including “(a) the nature of the actor’s conduct, (b) the actor’s motive, (c) the interests of the

other with which the actor’s conduct interferes, (d) the interests sought to be advanced by the

actor, (e) the social interests in protecting the freedom of action of the actor and the contractual

interests of the other, (f) the proximity or remoteness of the actor’s conduct to the interference,

and (g) the relations between the parties.” Id. (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 767).

The list is not exhaustive, and courts are to evaluate impropriety based on a “judgment and

choice of values in each situation.” Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 767, cmt. b.

A.3d 132, 141 n.28 (D.C. 2021). As a general matter, “the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ‘do

not require a plaintiff to anticipate affirmative defenses which might be raised by a

defendant[,]’” so a plaintiff need not affirmatively “allege wrongful or improper conduct in order

to survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a tortious interference claim under District of

Columbia law.” Econ. Rsch. Serv., Inc., 208 F. Supp. 3d at 230 n.12 (cleaned up).

However, a countervailing rule of thumb permits courts to address an affirmative defense

where the “the facts that give rise to the defense are clear from the face of the complaint[,]”

Smith-Haynie v. District of Columbia, 155 F.3d 575, 578 (D.C. Cir. 1998), or framed a tad

differently, where the plaintiff’s potential “rejoinder to the affirmative defense” is “foreclosed by

the allegations in the complaint[,]” de Csepel v. Republic of Hungary, 714 F.3d 591, 608 (D.C.

Cir. 2013) (quoting Goodman v. Praxair, Inc., 494 F.3d 458, 466 (4th Cir. 2007) (en banc)).

As the Court will explain, it is clear from the face of Johnson’s complaint that Wolff’s

Tweets do not constitute improper interference in her contract with Georgetown and thus cannot

sustain her tortious interference claim. The opinion will therefore address this point head-on, as

other courts in this District have likewise done at this procedural stage. See, e.g., Precision

Contracting Sols., LP v. ANGI Homeservices, Inc., 415 F. Supp. 3d 113, 123–24 (D.D.C. 2019);

Lannan Found. v. Gingold, 300 F. Supp. 3d 1, 28–29 (D.D.C. 2017); but see Haymon v. District

of Columbia, 610 F. Supp. 3d 101, 120 n.5 (D.D.C. 2022) (refusing to conclude that plaintiff

failed to allege interference as “improper” or “wrongful” because this burden is not part of the

plaintiff’s prima facie case). The Court’s approach is bolstered by the fact that Johnson

addressed the impropriety requirement both in her complaint, see SAC ¶¶ 448–52, and her

opposition brief, see Omnibus Response at 95–97.

58

Considering the facts in the light most favorable to Johnson—without crediting her legal

conclusions and speculative or threadbare assertions—Wolff’s behavior is a far cry from

wrongful or improper. The nature of her conduct was not unusual: She complained to other

social media users about an issue that upset her, though her posts did go viral along the way.

Wolff’s motive was clear from the face of the complaint: She perceived Johnson’s online

activity as an affront to her Jewish identity, especially in the immediate aftermath of the October

7 attack, and publicly vented her objection to Georgetown placing Johnson in a position of

responsibility vis-à-vis Jewish (and other) students. Though there may have been less

provocative means of voicing her opinion, she was entitled to do so the way she did. Relatedly,

Wolff’s individual interest in speaking out had a constitutional valence, which dovetails with the

societal interest in protecting her freedom of speech, especially on a matter of public concern like

an elite university’s hiring decisions. After all, “in public debate [we] must tolerate insulting . . .

speech in order to provide adequate ‘breathing space’ to the freedoms protected by the First

Amendment.’”23 Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 458 (2011) (quoting Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S.

312, 322 (1988)). These factors strongly outweigh Johnson’s interest in bringing an affirmative

tortious interference claim against Wolff, who, at best, played only an indirect role in her firing.

Imagine the road we would travel if any exasperated social media complaint about a

university personnel controversy could give rise to a tortious interference claim. The risk of such

23

The Court will not fulsomely address Wolff’s First Amendment defense, other than to

note that it packs a strong punch. Ironically enough, had the case remained in D.C. Superior

Court, the defendants would likely have had recourse to the District’s Anti-SLAPP Act, which

would have placed the First Amendment issue front and center and may also have entitled them

to the attorney’s fees several of them now seek in their Rule 11 sanctions motions. The

defendants forewent this path by removing the case to federal court. See July 18, 2025 Minute

Order (denying Wolff and Shapiro’s motions to dismiss under D.C.’s Anti-SLAPP Act, pursuant

to binding D.C. Circuit law requiring the application of federal procedural rules to state law

claims over which the district court exercises supplemental jurisdiction).

59

suits would undoubtedly chill campus speech, contravening the well-established principle that

the “college classroom,” along with “its surrounding environs,” is “peculiarly the ‘marketplace

of ideas[.]’” Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 180 (1972). To put an even finer point on it,

imagine if student activists for the Palestinian cause could be sued in tort if they condemned their

university’s decision to hire a vocal supporter of Israel. This cannot be the result Johnson truly

seeks, especially given her own history of campus organizing. Indeed, her opposition stresses

that she “does not challenge Defendants’ right to speak” and acknowledges that defendants “may

express their views about Palestinian advocacy, about [] Johnson’s political positions, about

Israel-Palestine dynamics.” Omnibus Response at 115. If Johnson instead aims to curb the

“use” of “employment authority to retaliate against protected-class membership[,]” id. at 116, an

iffy tortious interference claim against Wolff—who Johnson concedes had no employment

authority whatsoever—widely misses the mark.

In sum, Johnson’s tortious interference claim against Wolff is doomed by the plain face

of the complaint. Wolff’s Tweets do not qualify as wrongful or improper interference with

Johnson’s employment contract. The claim must be dismissed.

D. Leave to Amend

Although leave to amend may be freely given, the grant of such leave “is committed to a

district court’s discretion[,]” and amendment makes little sense where the plaintiff has

“repeated[ly] fail[ed] to cure deficiencies” in past complaints or further amendment would be

futile. Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (cleaned up).

The Court is not sure that Johnson has actually requested an opportunity to amend her

complaint. See Omnibus Response at 18 (discussing the possibility of amendment only

obliquely, while articulating the motion-to-dismiss legal standard). Even so, Johnson has had

60

two previous opportunities to amend her complaint, and the most recent set of amendments

offered almost no new pertinent facts. Many of the weaknesses of her legal positions have been

ventilated through Rule 11 correspondence, yet Johnson did not correct clear deficiencies in the

most recent round of amendments. Further, several of her claims are untimely, unexhausted, or

undercut by the complaint itself or key documents incorporated by reference into it, rendering

further amendments futile. The Court will therefore exercise its discretion to dismiss, with

prejudice, all of Johnson’s claims against defendants who have filed Rule 12(b) motions.

Dismissal of Johnson’s claims against Canary Mission, however, is not yet in order. As

already noted, the organization has not appeared in the case, let alone moved to dismiss

Johnson’s claims against it on any waivable or non-waivable basis. Under the circumstances, the

Court will afford Johnson twenty-one days to seek entry of default and move for default

judgment against Canary Mission under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55—though it notes that

such a motion may face an uphill battle for the reasons enumerated above and perhaps others.

Cf. Mwani v. bin Laden, 417 F.3d 1, 6 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“[T]he entry of a default judgment is

not automatic, and . . . a court should satisfy itself that it has personal jurisdiction before entering

judgment against an absent defendant.”). Should Johnson choose not to pursue default

proceedings, the Court will dismiss the claims against Canary Mission without prejudice for lack

of prosecution.

IV. Rule 11 Sanctions

Having dutifully marched through the jurisdictional and merits issues in the case, the

Court finally reaches the outstanding Rule 11 sanctions motions. Shapiro, the Donor Defendants,

and, in a late-breaking filing, Wolff (collectively, the “movants”)—have requested Rule 11

sanctions against Johnson and her counsel on the grounds that the claims against them were

61

frivolous and brought for the improper purpose of harassing them as Jewish individuals and

organizations and as adversaries in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.24 In support, the movants

have appended screenshots of posts on Mr. Hamed’s Facebook page condemning Zionism in

strident terms, along with a copy of a similar complaint that he has filed in the Northern District

of Georgia on behalf of a Palestinian employee who was fired by Emory University in Atlanta.

With the exception of Wolff’s, which the Court will strike as untimely,25 the motions for

sanctions have been fully briefed and are ready for resolution.

A brief literary meditation may help to set the scene. At the outset of Shakespeare’s

historical drama Henry VIII, the Duke of Buckingham speaks with the Duke of Norfolk and the

Lord Abergavenny about his seething resentment for Cardinal Wolsey, an ambitious statesman

and counselor to the king. “Stay, my lord,” Norfolk counsels Buckingham,

And let your reason with your choler question

What ’tis you go about. To climb steep hills

Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like

24

Shapiro has technically filed two motions for sanctions, one in the wake of Johnson’s

filing of the FAC and one after the filing of the operative SAC. Though a motion for sanctions

that pertains to a non-operative complaint is typically denied as moot, the SAC largely resembles

the FAC in terms of claims brought and core facts alleged, and Shapiro has incorporated

arguments from his first sanctions motion by reference in his second. See Shapiro Second Mot.

for Sanctions at 1 n.1. The Court will therefore consider the arguments advanced in both

motions that pertain to the SAC, though the first Motion for Sanctions will be denied as moot.

25

Wolff waited to file her motion for sanctions until the night before the February 19,

2026 motions hearing. As the Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 11 make clear, “[o]rdinarily,”

a motion for sanctions “should be served promptly after the inappropriate paper is filed, and, if

delayed too long, may be viewed as untimely.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, Advisory Committee Note to

1993 amendment. By the time Wolff filed her motion, Johnson’s SAC had been on file for

roughly six months, and her opposition to the motions to dismiss had been on file for about four.

Despite repeatedly advising Johnson’s counsel of the defects she perceived in the complaint,

Wolff only officially mobilized Rule 11 machinery against Johnson after the Court announced its

particular interest in the sanctions issues in its January 14, 2026 Minute Order, posted in advance

of the motions hearing. The delay, coupled with this conspicuous timing, leads the Court to

conclude that Wolff’s sanctions motion is untimely. And even if the motion were timely, it

would not warrant the imposition of sanctions on top of those which the Court will impose here.

62

A full hot horse who, being allowed his way,

Self-mettle tires him. . . . Be advised.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself. We may outrun

By violent swiftness that which we run at

And lose by overrunning. . . .

I say again there is no English soul

More stronger to direct you than yourself,

If with the sap of reason you would quench

Or but allay the fire of passion.

William Shakespeare, Henry VIII act I, sc. 1, l. 155–60, 167–77. With those sage words of

caution in mind, the Court turns to legal questions at hand.

A. Legal Standard

When a litigant files a “pleading, written motion, or other paper” with the court, her

attorney “certifies” that it is “not being presented for any improper purpose”; that the “claims,

defenses, and other legal contentions” in it “are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous

argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law”; and

that “the factual contentions have evidentiary support[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1)–(3).26

Sanctions are appropriate when an attorney or party violates any of these principles. Fed.

R. Civ. P. 11(c)(1). Courts apply an “objective standard” in assessing whether an attorney or

party has engaged in sanctionable conduct. Bus. Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications

Enters., 498 U.S. 533, 554 (1991). As suggested by Rule 11(b)’s subparts, one relevant aspect of

the inquiry is whether the paper was “interposed for any improper purpose.” Jordan v. DOL, 273

26

This case was removed from D.C. Superior Court, and some of the motions for

sanctions cite Rule 11 of the D.C. Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, the local analogue to

the federal Rule 11. Because Johnson filed the operative complaint in federal court, the Court

refers only to the federal rule in this opinion. In any event, “whether [the Court] proceeds under

the local or federal rule is immaterial” because “the two rules are nearly identical[,]” and “cases

and Advisory Committee Notes related to the one are persuasive authority for the other.”

Footbridge Limited Trust v. Zhang, No. 04-cv-347 (CKK), 2008 WL 11492924, at *1 n.1

(D.D.C. Nov. 13, 2008).

63

F. Supp. 3d 214, 241 (D.D.C. 2017) (quoting Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384,

393 (1990)). “[H]arassment, delay, [and] increasing the costs of an opponent in litigation” are

examples of improper purpose. Shekoyan v. Sibley Intern., 409 F.3d 414, 425 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

Another relevant question is “whether a reasonable inquiry would have revealed there

was no basis in law or fact for the asserted claim.” Reynolds v. U.S. Capitol Police Bd., 357 F.

Supp. 2d 19, 23 (D.D.C. 2004) (quoting Washington Bancorporation v. Said, 812 F. Supp. 1256,

1275 (D.D.C. 1993)). Framed another way, the court is to ask if the presenting attorney

“determined that [the] papers filed with the court are well grounded in fact [and] legally tenable.”

Jordan, 273 F. Supp. 3d at 241 (quoting Cooter & Gell, 496 U.S. at 393).

Rule 11(b)(2) acknowledges the possibility that litigants may be attempting to change a

landscape of unfavorable law or develop new precedent. They may have “researched the issues

and found some support for [their] theories even in minority opinions, in law review articles, or

through consultation with other attorneys[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, Advisory Committee Note to

1993 amendment. Still, such efforts must be “nonfrivolous” in an objective sense, thereby

“eliminat[ing] any ‘empty-head pure-heart’ justification for patently frivolous arguments.” Id.

All this said, “[c]ourts do not impose Rule 11 sanctions lightly; such sanctions are an

extreme punishment for filing pleadings that frustrate judicial proceedings.” Jordan, 273 F.

Supp. 3d at 241 (emphasis added). “[W]hether to grant sanctions under Rule 11 rests firmly in

the Court’s discretion[.]” Hueter v. Kruse, 610 F. Supp. 3d 60, 72 (D.D.C. 2022); see also

Rafferty v. NYNEX Corp., 60 F.3d 844, 852 n.12 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (explaining the 1993

64

amendment to Rule 11 that permits, rather than directs, a court to impose sanctions upon finding

a rule violation); Del Canto v. ITT Sheraton Corp., 865 F. Supp. 934, 939 (D.D.C. 1994).27

B. Analysis

The pending motions for sanctions highlight a similar set of grievances with Johnson’s

complaint. First, the movants assert that Johnson and Hamed have acted with improper motives,

making their conduct sanctionable under Rule 11(b)(1). And second, they submit that Johnson’s

complaint is frivolous because it lacks an adequate basis in law and fact, rendering her and

counsel’s conduct sanctionable under Rule 11(b)(2) and (b)(3). The Court takes each of these

arguments in turn.28

1. Improper Purpose

Shapiro and the Donor Defendants accuse Johnson and Hamed of acting with improper

purpose—namely to harass them as Jewish individuals and organizations and ideological

opponents in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

27

The Court notes that in the body of the Rafferty opinion, the D.C. Circuit stated that a

district court has no discretion whether to impose sanctions once it has found sanctionable

conduct. 60 F.3d at 852. Understandably, some courts in this district have continued to cite

Rafferty for this proposition. See, e.g., Arpaio v. Robillard, 459 F. Supp. 3d 62, 68 (D.D.C.

2020). But on closer examination, a rather ill-placed footnote in the decision makes clear that

the strict obligation to impose sanctions only applies to the pre-1993 version of Rule 11.

Rafferty, 60 F.3d at 852 n.12. The current version of the rule is more permissive. Thus, “once a

district court finds a Rule 11 violation, it retains broad discretion in imposing sanctions.”

Hourani v. Mirtchev, 796 F.3d 1, 17 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

28

The Court’s ruling that it may not exercise personal jurisdiction over Shapiro and the

Donor Defendants does not preclude a decision on their sanctions motions because “a district

court may impose Rule 11 sanctions even when it lacks jurisdiction over the underlying case[.]”

Lambert Law Firm P.C. v. Hansel, No. 24-cv-2396 (CRC), 2024 WL 4987026, at *6 (D.D.C.

Dec. 5, 2024) (citing Willy v. Coastal Corp., 503 U.S. 131, 139 (1992)); cf. Cooter & Gell, 496

U.S. at 396 (“[T]he imposition of a Rule 11 sanction is not a judgment on the merits of an

action,” but rather “the determination of a collateral issue[.]”).

65

For several reasons, the movants have not demonstrated that Johnson and Hamed acted

with improper purpose under Rule 11(b)(1). To begin, the Court emphasizes that the

employment discrimination claim at the core of this case is not frivolous, as evidenced by the

considered treatment above of Johnson’s Title VII disparate treatment claim against Georgetown.

“The fact that [Johnson’s] Complaint raised nonfrivolous claims is strong evidence that it was

not filed for improper purposes.” Gonzalez Ramos v. ADR Vantage, Inc., No. 18-cv-1690

(APM), 2021 WL 4462411, at *2 (D.D.C. Sep. 29, 2021). Though a lawsuit may very well be

valid as to some defendants and baseless as to others, the facial legitimacy of Johnson’s central

discrimination claim undermines the movants’ sweeping denunciation of her entire complaint as

merely a “thinly veiled attack on Jews and Israel as a Jewish State.” Shapiro First Mot. for

Sanctions at 25.29 The movants’ shotgun accusation of improper purpose is too imprecise to

justify the imposition of a Rule 11 sanction.

The Court next considers whether Shapiro and the Donor Defendants have furnished

concrete evidence that Johnson and Hamed brought this suit for the purpose of harassing them

based on their religion and political positions. The movants highlight the complaint’s repeated

use of the label “Zionist” and such terms as “occupied Palestine,” “apartheid,” “occupation,”

29

The motions for sanctions are filled with such broadsides. See, e.g., Shapiro First Mot.

for Sanctions at 24 (describing the amended complaint as Johnson and Hamed’s effort to

“twist[]” the “judicial system” into “merely an opportunity to air conspiratorial and

discriminatory grievances against Jews”); Shapiro Second Mot. for Sanctions at 8 (“[T]he

SAC—on its face and taking into consideration Plaintiff and her counsel’s explicit hatred for so-

called ‘Zionists’ like Mr. Shapiro—was filed for the improper purpose of harassment[.]”); San

Francisco Defs. Mot. for Sanctions at 15 (noting Hamed’s “expressions of deep-seated animus”

against Zionists on social media “strongly support the conclusion that this action is intended to

harass, intimidate, and punish those whom counsel perceives as ideological opponents”);

Milstein Defs. Mot. for Sanctions at 28 (“[T]he plain and obvious purpose of the SAC is not to

redress any actionable harm but to weaponize the courts to air political grievances and exact

reputational retribution against Jewish individuals and organizations.”).

66

“extermination,” and “genocide,” which the defendants characterize as inflammatory. See, e.g.

Shapiro First Mot. for Sanctions at 25–26; San Francisco Defs. Mot. for Sanctions at 14–15;

Milstein Defs. Motion for Sanctions at 26. To be sure, many of these terms are fraught and

politically contested. And there are numerous paragraphs of overheated rhetoric in Johnson’s

complaint that add little substance to her discrimination and tort claims; in fact, they often detract

from the complaint’s overall clarity. Still, the use of this terminology is not inherently

demonstrative of harassing purpose, and under present circumstances, the Court will steer clear

of the risky territory of policing litigants’ choice of language.

Shapiro and the Milstein Defendants also suggest that Johnson and Hamed’s improper

motives for bringing the suit are reflected in antisemitic stereotypes portrayed in the complaint

involving a conspiracy among Jewish actors. See, e.g. Milstein Defs. Mot. for Sanctions at 1;

Shapiro First Mot. for Sanctions at 26–27. Johnson’s civil rights conspiracy claim is doubtless

one of her weakest. But the perception of some coordination between subsets of the defendants

is, on its own, not so outlandish as to evince a prejudicial motive on Johnson or Hamed’s part.

Wolff’s Tweets and Shapiro’s re-Tweet can be fairly read as intended to pressure Georgetown

into disciplining Johnson. Canary Mission’s apparent organizational objective is to name and

shame pro-Palestine and anti-Israel advocates, in part to push employers to fire them (or not hire

them in the first place), and it has not appeared in this lawsuit to dispute that characterization.

And it is at bare minimum conceivable that some of Canary Mission’s funders knew of this

general objective. To be abundantly clear, none of this a conspiracy makes, let alone a civil

rights conspiracy, for the reasons laid out above. But just because the conspiracy claim was far

from legally plausible does not automatically mean it was brought with malicious intent.

67

Finally, Shapiro and the Donor Defendants point to some additional social media posts by

Johnson and several Facebook posts by Hamed to suggest that they both harbor animus toward

Jewish people and supporters of Israel. The movants’ invitation to consider materials beyond the

scope of the suit gives the Court serious pause.

“It has long been held that in considering the implementation of sanctions against a party

or a counsel to a litigation, a district court may consider all the circumstances surrounding the

alleged violation.” Atkins v. Fischer, 232 F.R.D. 116, 129 (D.D.C. 2005). Such circumstances

may include a general pattern of misconduct in the case at bar or similar misconduct in other

cases. Id.; see also Hickey v. Scott, 738 F. Supp. 2d 55, 73 (D.D.C. 2010). But even though

courts are entitled to assess the purpose of a filing in “full context” rather than “in a vacuum[,]”

Trout v. O’Keefe, 144 F.R.D. 587, 588 (D.D.C. 1992), a free-ranging inquiry into the political

views that Johnson and Hamed have espoused on private social media accounts is out of bounds

under present circumstances. The movants furnish no legal authority to support such an inquiry,

which would not seem to bear directly on the purported abuse of judicial process.30 And while

examining extrinsic communications by litigants and counsel may be appropriate in some

scenarios, this general paucity of case law is not surprising—imagine the fallout from a Rule 11

analysis that gave embittered litigants and attorneys carte blanche to harvest potentially damning

material from their opponents’ social media accounts. Such an approach would spawn an array

of mini-adjudications over the authenticity and meaning conveyed by screenshots of social media

posts. Indeed, in this very case, Hamed has appended several declarations to his omnibus

response to the motions for sanctions to fend off the movants’ attacks on his character and online

30

The posts might have been fair game had they spoken more directly to Johnson and

Hamed’s reasons for filing suit. But beyond the Tweets at issue in the case, the pair’s social

media posts reflect generalized (if strident) positions on issues of the day.

68

conduct. Opening the Rule 11 floodgates in this way would undermine one of the core

objectives of the rule, which is to “protect the court” from filings that “vexatiously multiply[]”

judicial “proceedings.” Cobell v. Norton, 211 F.R.D. 7, 10 (D.D.C. 2002). It also strikes the

Court as ironic that the certain of the movants should seek to target social media posts for Rule

11 purposes when they otherwise steadfastly defend their own right to engage in controversial

speech on online platforms. The Court will decline the invitation to examine activity that is

beyond the scope of this lawsuit or any other relevant judicial proceedings.

In sum, the Court has not been presented with any firm basis for imposing Rule 11(b)(1)

sanctions on Johnson and Hamed. However ill-advised this lawsuit may have been, the Court

cannot say, on this record, that it was filed for the improper purpose of harassing Shapiro or the

Donors Defendants based on their religious identity or political ideology.

2. Frivolousness of Claims against Shapiro and Donor Defendants

There remains the question whether Rule 11(b)(2) or (b)(3) sanctions are appropriate—

i.e., whether Johnson’s claims are legally and factually tenable.

Before getting to the heart of that matter, the Court considers whether it may properly

apply Rule 11(b)(2) and (b)(3) to Johnson herself. The text of Rule 11 permits courts to impose

sanctions on represented parties (though they may not impose monetary sanctions on represented

parties for violations of (b)(2), per Rule 11(c)(5)(A)). The advisory committee notes to the 1983

amendments to the rule further confirm that “[e]ven though it is the attorney whose signature

violates the rule, it may be appropriate under the circumstances of the case to impose a sanction

on the client.” If sanctions are to attach to a client, however, the relevant violation must be

somehow or another attributable to her. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(1) (“If . . . the court

determines that Rule 11(b) has been violated, the court may impose an appropriate sanction on

69

any attorney, law firm, or party that violated the rule or is responsible for the violation.”

(emphasis added)). Here, to the extent that Shapiro and the Donor Defendants accuse Johnson of

making legally and factually frivolous assertions in her complaint, fundamental fault would seem

to lie with her attorney. Because the movants have not sufficiently explained why the fatal

defects in the complaint are attributable to Johnson herself, the Court will deny their Rule

11(b)(2) and (b)(3) sanctions requests as to her.

As the attorney who has represented Johnson since the origination of this case, Mr.

Hamed comes under greater scrutiny. The Court will consider each movant’s arguments to

decide whether Hamed has run afoul of Rule 11’s strictures, mindful of “the fact that [just

because] claims in a complaint” are not “ultimately meritorious,” that “does not mean they are

frivolous or automatically sanctionable.” Gonzalez Ramos v. ADR Vantage, Inc., No. 21-cv-592

(APM), 2022 WL 834095, at *1 (D.D.C. Mar. 21, 2022).

a. Shapiro

Let’s start with Mr. Shapiro, who contends that the SAC furnished no reasonable, good-

faith basis for personal jurisdiction or any of the claims against him. It was not outrageous for

Johnson to posit that the Court had personal jurisdiction over Shapiro; after all, Shapiro

deliberately interjected himself in a brewing Georgetown personnel controversy and amplified

Wolff’s Tweets by tagging Georgetown in his post. See SAC ¶ 131 (“Her name is Aneesa

Johnson, @Georgetown School of Foreign Service’s new assistant director of academic

affairs.”). While Johnson did not ultimately succeed in establishing the Court’s jurisdiction over

Shapiro, there was a colorable—if weak—argument that he made sufficient contact with the

forum to justify haling him into court. At the very least, a reasonable lawyer could have

identified sufficient question marks to support a nonfrivolous request for jurisdictional discovery

70

on Shapiro’s contacts with D.C. in relation to one of the “plus factors” in § 13-423(a)(4) of the

District’s long-arm statute. See supra at Section III.A.

Because the Court lacked personal jurisdiction over Shapiro, the merits section of this

opinion does not address the substance of Johnson’s claims against him, which include DCHRA

aiding and abetting discrimination, civil rights conspiracy, IIED, tortious interference, and false

light invasion of privacy. For many of the same reasons that the claims did not lie against the

Georgetown Defendants and Wolff, Johnson’s complaint would not have been able to survive

Shapiro’s motion to dismiss on the merits.

However, Johnson’s claims against Shapiro vary in terms of speciousness. For instance,

there is a nonfrivolous argument to be made that Johnson’s tortious interference claim against

Shapiro would have been timely and satisfied at least the prima facie elements of the tort, even if

it would not have been meritorious. In Tweeting Johnson’s name and position at the university,

and tagging Georgetown directly in his post, Shapiro may well have been trying to dial up the

pressure on the university and have Johnson punished. It was also arguably within the bounds of

zealous advocacy for Johnson to bring her IIED claim, which was not as evidently time-barred as

the false light claim. Reasonable litigants and judges may disagree as to what kind of online

conduct is outrageous, and no defendant has contested that Johnson has received credible threats

of violence from third parties, which enhance the gravity of the fallout from these events.

Moreover, if the civil rights conspiracy claim had been more narrowly bounded, better argued,

and focused on Shapiro’s evident effort to draw Georgetown’s attention to Johnson’s misdeeds,

it would have been far less outlandish—though, doubtless, unsuccessful in the end.

Other claims against Shapiro strike the Court as especially weak on the law. For

example, Johnson’s (or perhaps more accurately, Hamed’s) decision to add Shapiro as a

71

defendant on the false light claim after dismissing the defamation claim against all defendants

ignores the similar nature of the two torts and the statute of limitations problem that clearly

dooms both. The DCHRA aiding and abetting claim had a similar fundamental timeliness defect

as to Shapiro, not to mention the claim’s tenuous grounding in existing law.

In short, although all of Johnson’s claims against Shapiro would have failed, some of

them were colorable, while others pushed at the outer “bounds of creative advocacy” or

suggested that Hamed has failed to properly consider key aspects of the claims. Jones, 322 F.

Supp. 3d at 110. In assessing a Rule 11 motion, “the Court must . . . take into consideration that .

. . sanctions are a harsh punishmen

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