Petition for Writ of Certiorari — StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, et al., Petitioners v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Supreme Court briefJun 18, 2026

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No. 25-___

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

————

STANDWITHUS CENTER FOR LEGAL JUSTICE, ET AL.,

Petitioners,

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,

Respondent.

————

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals

for the First Circuit

————

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

————

CHRISTOPHER MILLS

JASON B. TORCHINSKY

ANDREAS N. EPISKOPOS

Counsel of Record

HOLTZMAN VOGEL

SPERO LAW LLC

BARAN TORCHINSKY

557 East Bay St. #22251

& JOSEFIAK PLLC

Charleston, SC 29413

2300 N St. NW

(843) 606-0640

Suite 643

cmills@spero.law

Washington, DC 20037

MARK I. PINKERT

HOLTZMAN VOGEL

SUSAN L. GREENE

SARITHA KOMATIREDDY

BARAN TORCHINSKY

AKIVA SHAPIRO

& JOSEFIAK PLLC

HOLTZMAN VOGEL

2333 Ponce de Leon Blvd.

Suite 600

BARAN TORCHINSKY

Coral Gables, FL 33134

& JOSEFIAK PLLC

1325 Avenue of the Americas

JARED S. BAUMAN

Suite 2843

HOLTZMAN VOGEL

New York, NY 10019

BARAN TORCHINSKY

& JOSEFIAK PLLC

GLENN A. DANAS

CLARKSON LAW FIRM, P.C.

1221 Broadway

22525 Pacific Coast Hwy

Suite 2100

Nashville, TN 37203

Malibu, CA 90265

CARLY F. GAMMILL

STANDWITHUS SAIDOFF LAW

P.O. Box 341069

Los Angeles, CA 90034

Counsel for Petitioners

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race,

color, or national origin. Unlawful discrimination

includes “deliberate indifference” to a “hostile

environment.” Davis v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 526

U.S. 629 (1999). This case concerns the legal

standards for a “hostile environment,” which have

long confused and split the lower courts.

That confusion has come to a head with the recent

explosion of campus antisemitism. As set out in

Petitioners’ complaint, Respondent MIT allowed a

hostile environment for Jewish students to fester, as

roving groups of “protesters” called for violence,

physically aggressed Jews, blocked public access, and

targeted Jewish spaces. Because MIT failed to take

adequate steps to address these realities, its campus

devolved into a severely antisemitic environment.

The First Circuit affirmed dismissal on the

pleadings. Deepening a 5-3-4 circuit split, it held that

Petitioners’ allegations of a hostile environment were

insufficient because they did not establish that the

protesters were motivated by racial “animus.” And it

created an independent 3-1 circuit split in holding

that, because protesters were engaged in “protected

speech,” no hostile environment could be pleaded.

App. 15a.

The questions presented are:

I. Whether the harassers’ subjective discriminatory

intent is an element of a hostile environment

claim under Title VI.

II. Whether the First Amendment bars a plaintiff

from pleading a Title VI hostile environment

claim based on “protected speech.”

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDINGS

Petitioners StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice,

Katerina Boukin, and Marilyn Meyers were the

Plaintiffs before the district court and the PlaintiffsAppellants before the First Circuit.

Respondent the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology was the Defendant before the district

court and the Defendant-Appellee before the First

Circuit.

iii

CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Petitioner StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice

certifies that it is a tax-exempt membership

organization with no parent corporation, and that no

public company owns any interest in it. Petitioners

Katerina Boukin and Marilyn Meyers certify that

they are natural persons.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

QUESTIONS PRESENTED ...............................

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDINGS ..................

CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT ....

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES................................

vii

OPINION BELOW ..............................................

JURISDICTION ..................................................

STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL

PROVISIONS INVOLVED .................................

INTRODUCTION ................................................

STATEMENT OF THE CASE ............................

Legal Background ..................................

Factual Background ...............................

Procedural History .................................

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION ....

I. This Court Should Grant the Petition to

Resolve the Deep Circuit Split Over

Whether the Harassers’ Subjective

Discriminatory Intent Is an Element of a

Federal Hostile Environment Claim .......

II. This Court Should Grant the Petition to

Resolve the Circuit Split Created by the

First Circuit’s Invention of a Categorical

“Protected Speech” Exception to Federal

Anti-Discrimination Laws ........................

TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued

Page

III. This Case Is an Ideal Vehicle to

Address Recurring Issues of National

Importance ................................................

CONCLUSION ....................................................

APPENDIX

APPENDIX TABLE OF CONTENTS

Appendix A: U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit, Opinion (October 21, 2025) ..........

Appendix B: U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit, Judgment (October 21, 2025) .......

47a

Appendix C: District Court of Massachusetts,

Memorandum Opinion and Order (July 30,

2024) ....................................................................

48a

Appendix D: District Court of Massachusetts,

Order of Dismissal (August 21, 2024) ................

62a

Appendix E: U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit, Order Denying Rehearing

(January 21, 2026) ..............................................

63a

vii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Abramson v. William Paterson College,

260 F.3d 265 (3d Cir. 2001) ..................... 19, 20

AID v. All. for Open Soc’y Int’l, Inc.,

570 U.S. 205 (2013)...................................

Ames v. Ohio Dep’t of Youth Servs.,

605 U.S. 303 (2025)...................................

Arendale v. City of Memphis,

519 F.3d 587 (6th Cir. 2008) ....................

Barnes v. Gorman,

536 U.S. 181 (2002).................................. 25, 28

Belgau v. Inslee,

975 F.3d 940 (9th Cir. 2020) ....................

Bell v. Baptist Health,

60 F.4th 1198 (8th Cir. 2023) ...................

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly,

550 U.S. 544 (2007)...................................

Bostock v. Clayton Cnty.,

590 U.S. 644 (2020)...................................

Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp.,

786 F.3d 264 (4th Cir. 2015) ....................

Bryant v. Indep. Sch. Dist.,

334 F.3d 928 (10th Cir. 2003) ............. 8, 24, 29

Canel v. Art Inst. of Chi.,

No. 23-cv-17064, 2025 WL 564504

(N.D. Ill. Feb. 20, 2025) ............................

Canel v. Art Inst. of Chi.,

No. 23-cv-17064, 2026 WL 776580

(N.D. Ill. Mar. 19, 2026) ...........................

viii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Caver v. City of Trenton,

420 F.3d 243 (3d Cir. 2005) ......................

Chapman v. Oakland Living Center, Inc.,

48 F.4th 222 (4th Cir. 2022) .................... 16, 17

Citizens United v. FEC,

558 U.S. 310 (2010).................................. 22, 23

Clay v. United Parcel Serv., Inc.,

501 F.3d 695 (6th Cir. 2007) ....................

Cohen v. Cowles Media Co.,

501 U.S. 663 (1991)...................................

Cox v. Louisiana,

379 U.S. 536 (1965)...................................

Crist v. Focus Homes,

122 F.3d 1107 (8th Cir. 1997) ................. 18, 19

Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C.,

596 U.S. 212 (2022)...................................

Davis v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ.,

526 U.S. 629

(1999).............................. 2, 7, 20, 23–30, 32, 33

Doe v. Brown Univ.,

43 F.4th 195 (1st Cir. 2022) .....................

Doe v. City of Belleville,

119 F.3d 563 (7th Cir. 1997), vacated on

other grounds, 523 U.S. 1001 (1998) ........

Doe v. Nw. Univ.,

No. 24-cv-04831, 2026 WL 607423

(N.D. Ill. Mar. 3, 2026) .............................

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Dunn v. Wash. Cnty. Hosp.,

429 F.3d 689 (7th Cir. 2005) ....................

EEOC v. Nat’l Educ. Ass’n,

422 F.3d 840 (9th Cir. 2005) ....................

Ellison v. Brady,

924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991) ....................

Faragher v. City of Boca Raton,

524 U.S. 775 (1998)...................................

Feminist Majority Found. v. Hurley,

911 F.3d 674 (4th Cir. 2018) ....................

Fennell v. Marion Indep. Sch. Dist.,

804 F.3d 398 (5th Cir. 2015) ............... 8, 24, 29

Frankel v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal.,

744 F. Supp. 3d 1015 (C.D. Cal. 2024) .....

Franklin v. Gwinnett Cnty. Pub. Schs.,

503 U.S. 60 (1992) ....................................

Gebser v. Lago Vista Indep. Sch. Dist.,

524 U.S. 274 (1998)..................................

Goodman v. Bowdoin Coll.,

380 F.3d 33 (1st Cir. 2004) .......................

Grace v. Bd. of Trs.,

85 F.4th 1 (1st Cir. 2023) .........................

Grove City Coll. v. Bell,

465 U.S. 555 (1984)...................................

Hall v. City of Chicago,

713 F.3d 325 (7th Cir. 2013) ....................

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc.,

510 U.S. 17 (1993) .................................... 3, 20

Healy v. James,

408 U.S. 169 (1972)...................................

Huff v. Sheahan,

493 F.3d 893 (7th Cir. 2007) ....................

Jones v. UPS Ground Freight,

683 F.3d 1283 (11th Cir. 2012) ................

Kestenbaum v. President & Fellows of

Harvard College,

743 F. Supp. 3d 297 (D. Mass. 2024) ...... 33, 34

King v. Frazier,

77 F.3d 1361 (Fed. Cir. 1995) ...................

Linville v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.,

335 F.3d 822 (8th Cir. 2003) ....................

Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human

Rights Under Law v. President &

Fellows of Harvard College,

No. 24-cv-11354-RGS, 2024 WL

4681802 (D. Mass. Nov. 5, 2024) ............. 33, 34

Lounds v. Lincare, Inc.,

812 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 2015) ................

Margolin v. Nat’l Ass’n of Immigr. Judges,

146 S. Ct. 1285 (2026) ..............................

Matal v. Tam,

582 U.S. 218 (2017)...................................

Menzia v. Austin Indep. Sch. Dist.,

47 F.4th 354 (5th Cir. 2022) .....................

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson,

477 U.S. 57 (1986) ......................... 2, 3, 6, 7, 24

Muldrow v. City of St. Louis,

601 U.S. 346 (2024)...................................

Newton v. Dep’t of the Air Force,

85 F.3d 595 (Fed. Cir. 1996) .....................

Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc.,

523 U.S. 75 (1998) ....................................

Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v.

Halderman,

451 U.S. 1 (1981) ......................................

R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul,

505 U.S. 377 (1992)...................................

Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch. Dist.,

240 F.3d 200 (3d Cir. 2001) ......................

Segev v. President & Fellows of Harv. Coll.,

No. 24-cv-12646-RGS

(D. Mass. Dec. 4, 2025) .............................

Sewell v. Monroe City Sch. Bd.,

974 F.3d 577 (5th Cir. 2020) ....................

Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb,

481 U.S. 615 (1987)...................................

Snyder v. Phelps,

562 U.S. 443 (2011)............................ 27, 28, 30

xii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice v.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

158 F.4th 1 (1st Cir. 2025) ......................

StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice v.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

165 F.4th 97 (1st Cir. 2026) ....................

StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice v.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

742 F. Supp. 3d 133 (D. Mass. 2024) .....

Stewart v. Evans,

275 F.3d 1126 (D.C. Cir. 2002) .................

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v.

President & Fellows of Harv. Coll.,

600 U.S. 181 (2023)...................................

Texas v. Johnson,

491 U.S. 397 (1989).................................. 27–30

Trask v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Veterans Affs.,

822 F.3d 1179 (11th Cir. 2016) ................

Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar,

570 U.S. 338 (2013)...................................

Vaughn v. Pool Offshore Co.,

683 F.2d 922 (5th Cir. 1982) ....................

Veksler v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal.,

No. 25-cv-11745, slip op.

(C.D. Cal. June 12, 2026) .........................

xiii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Virginia v. Black,

538 U.S. 343 (2003)...................................

Walston v. Foley & Lardner, LLP,

516 F. App’x 1 (D.C. Cir. 2013) ................

Williams v. General Motors Corp.,

187 F.3d 553 (6th Cir. 1999) ....................

Zeno v. Pine Plains Cent. Sch. Dist.,

702 F.3d 655 (2d Cir. 2012) ...................... 8, 24

CONSTITUTION

U.S. Const. amend. I ...................................

STATUTES

28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) .......................................

42 U.S.C. § 1981 ...........................................

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

§ 601, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d ........................ 2, 6, 21

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

§ 703, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) ...............

Title IX of the Education Amendments of

1972 § 901, 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a) ...............

6–7

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Kenneth L. Marcus, Title VI and Title IX

Religious Discrimination in Schools and

Colleges, U.S. Dep’t of Educ. (Sept. 13,

2004), https://perma.cc/WRV3-DHNE .....

xiv

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Office for Civil Rights, Dear Colleague

Letter:

Protecting

Students

from

Discrimination, such as Harassment,

Based on Race, Color, or National

Origin, Including Shared Ancestry or

Ethnic Characteristics, U.S. Dep’t of

Educ. (May 7, 2024) ................................. 34–35

Special Collection: Title VI AntiPalestinian/Antisemitism Cases, C.R.

Litig. Clearinghouse, https://clearinghou

se.net/collections/39089 (last visited

June 16, 2026) ...........................................

The United States Announces Agreement

with Northwestern University, U.S. Dep’t

of Just. (Nov. 28, 2025), https://www.

justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-announ

ces-agreement-northwestern-university..

Webster’s New International Dictionary

(2d ed. 1954) ..............................................

OPINION BELOW

The opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit (No. 24-1800) is available at

StandWithUs

Center

for

Legal

Justice

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 158 F.4th 1

(1st Cir. 2025). This opinion is reproduced at App. 1a–

46a, and the accompanying judgment is reproduced at

App. 47a.

The First Circuit’s order denying rehearing and/or

rehearing en banc is available at StandWithUs Center

for Legal Justice v. Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, 165 F.4th 97 (1st Cir. 2026). This order is

reproduced at App. 63a–71a.

The memorandum opinion and order of the U.S.

District Court for the District of Massachusetts (No.

1:24-cv-10577-RGS) is available at StandWithUs

Center for Legal Justice v. Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, 742 F. Supp. 3d 133 (D. Mass. 2024). This

memorandum opinion and order is reproduced at App.

48a–61a, and the subsequent order of dismissal is

reproduced at App. 62a.

JURISDICTION

The district court entered its final judgment

dismissing Petitioners’ claims on August 21, 2024.

App. 62a. Petitioners timely noticed their appeal to

the First Circuit on August 29, 2024.

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the

district court on October 21, 2025. App. 47a.

Petitioners timely filed a petition for rehearing and/or

rehearing en banc, which the First Circuit denied on

January 21, 2026. App. 63a–64a.

On April 1, 2026, Justice Jackson granted

Petitioners’ unopposed application for a 58-day

extension of time to file this petition. This Court thus

properly has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).

STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL

PROVISIONS INVOLVED

Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42

U.S.C. § 2000d, “[n]o person in the United States

shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin,

be excluded from participation in, be denied the

benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under

any program or activity receiving Federal financial

assistance.”

Under the First Amendment, “Congress shall

make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging

the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of

the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the

Government for a redress of grievances.” U.S. CONST.

amend. I.

INTRODUCTION

This Court’s intervention is needed to resolve two

circuit splits—and the resulting confusion among the

lower courts—about the elements and standards for

maintaining a “hostile environment” claim under

federal anti-discrimination law.

This Court has long held that a hostile

environment claim can be stated when the

discriminatory hostility is “so severe, pervasive, and

objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the

victims of access to the educational opportunities or

benefits provided by the school.” Davis, 526 U.S. at

650; see also Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477

U.S. 57, 67 (1986). But the concept of “severe or

pervasive” harassment is nebulous—especially with

changing political, social, and sexual mores—and this

Court has not provided guidance for over thirty years.

See Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993).

Further, as this Court has acknowledged, its “cases

have established few definite rules for determining

when [liability arises] for a discriminatory

environment that is otherwise actionably abusive.”

Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788

(1998).

Without clear direction, the Courts of Appeals

have divided on key legal issues relating to federal

anti-discrimination laws that similarly govern

federally funded organizations (Title VI), employers

(Title VII), and educational programs receiving

federal assistance (Title IX). In turn, covered entities

face dramatically different standards depending on

where they happen to operate, which is not a

framework this Court accepts. See, e.g., Ames v. Ohio

Dep’t of Youth Servs., 605 U.S. 303, 313 (2025)

(rejecting heightened evidentiary standard for certain

anti-discrimination claims). “[A]textual legal rules

and frameworks” tend to “distort the underlying

statutory text” and “cause confusion for courts.” Id. at

313–14 (Thomas, J., concurring). This case presents

an ideal vehicle to resolve two discrete questions of

significant importance to these anti-discrimination

laws.

Immediately after Hamas’s terror attacks on

October 7, 2023, college campuses became embroiled

in riots, weeks-long encampments, and violence, as

well as ostracization, discrimination, and targeting of

Jewish students and staff. Many universities were

sued under Title VI and (for public universities) the

First Amendment for not appropriately addressing

this widespread harassment. See, e.g., Frankel v.

Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 744 F. Supp. 3d 1015,

1020 (C.D. Cal. 2024) (finding harassment of Jewish

students reached a point “abhorrent to our

constitutional guarantee of religious freedom”).

As set out in Petitioners’ complaint, student and

faculty protesters at MIT called for violence against

Jews in a new “[i]ntifada revolution,” which they

“justified” as a form of “[r]esistance.” App. 4a–5a.

They praised “the martyr[s]” of Hamas and beckoned

for “death to Zionism.” App. 11a–12a. They disrupted

classes and impeded access to public spaces, and they

coalesced around Jewish community and religious

locations as they targeted students and faculty

because of their Jewish identities. See App. 5a–13a,

49a–53a. They shoved a Jewish student to the ground

and rattled the door handles of Jewish faculty offices,

chanting “you can’t hide.” App. 5a–6a. These actions,

among others, violated MIT’s time, place, and manner

rules for protests, and made campus life intolerable

for Jews. See App. 5a–13a, 49a–53a.

Yet, despite MIT vigorously enforcing its policies

to protect other minorities, it refused to do so for

Jewish victims. See App. 50a–53a. Instead, it issued

pro forma statements and took inadequate remedial

measures that not only allowed antisemitism to

persist but, because of MIT’s delay and antipathy,

further exacerbated the hostile environment. Indeed,

“when a member of Congress asked President

Kornbluth whether ‘calling for the genocide of Jews

violate[s] MIT’s code of conduct,’ President Kornbluth

gave a hairsplitting legalistic response: ‘If targeted at

individuals, not making public statements.’” App. 51a.

Meanwhile, when students reported antisemitic

incidents to MIT’s Institute Discrimination &

Harassment Response Office (IDHR), MIT told them

that the incidents “‘did not seem to violate the policies

that IDHR has jurisdiction over’ and, moreover, that

Jews are not members of a protected class.” Id.

The First Circuit nonetheless affirmed dismissal of

Petitioners’ Title VI claims based largely on two

erroneous legal holdings. First, the court held that

Petitioners had not sufficiently alleged that the

protesters had the “subjective intent” to harass Jews,

and that this defeated any hostile environment claim.

This holding deepens an already stark circuit split (53, with another 4 circuits having an intra-circuit split)

about whether the harassers’ subjective intent is an

element of a hostile environment claim.

Second, and relatedly, the First Circuit held that

the protesters were engaged in “protected speech”

under the First Amendment, and that such speech

could not create a hostile environment sufficient to

sustain a Title VI claim for severe harassment. This

holding creates a 3-1 circuit split—and undermines

the effectiveness of Title VI’s protections against a

hostile environment—by inventing a yawning

carveout when the environment is created with words

or expressive conduct.

Beyond deepening divisions among the Courts of

Appeals, these holdings lack grounding in statutory

text, conflict with this Court’s precedent, and

ultimately threaten to undermine federal antidiscrimination protections for all Americans—not just

Jews. If allowed to stand, the First Circuit’s holdings

would render important aspects of the Civil Rights Act

a dead letter. That statute affords employees and

students “the right to work [or go to school] in an

environment free from discriminatory intimidation,

ridicule, and insult.” Meritor Sav. Bank, 477 U.S. at

65.

Thus, an actionable claim should not turn on what

was subjectively in the wrongdoers’ minds when they

created the hostile environment—or on whether the

discriminatory environment was created by speech or

expressive conduct. By the First Circuit’s logic, a

woman subjected to repeated and uncomfortable

sexual advances in the workplace would not have a

viable Title VII claim if she could not allege, and

eventually prove, that the workplace offender

subjectively intended to discriminate on the basis of

sex. Likewise, a Black student subjected to racial

slurs by students wearing white hoods and waving

nooses would not be able to state a claim because

words-and-symbols-only harassment could never lead

to a hostile environment, even at a private university

that chose to accept federal funds.

This Court should grant the petition to resolve

these splits of authority and address these issues of

nationwide importance.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

A. Legal Background

Federal anti-discrimination law protects students,

other participants in federally funded programs, and

employees from discrimination based on race,

national origin, or sex. See Title VI of the Civil Rights

Act of 1964 § 601, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d; Title IX of the

Education Amendments of 1972 § 901, 20 U.S.C.

§ 1681(a); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

§ 703, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).

Institutions are liable under these statutes when

they are deliberately indifferent to a hostile

environment. See, e.g., Davis, 526 U.S. at 650–54;

Gebser v. Lago Vista Indep. Sch. Dist., 524 U.S. 274

(1998); Franklin v. Gwinnett Cnty. Pub. Schs., 503

U.S. 60, 64 (1992); Meritor Sav. Bank, 477 U.S. at 67.

A “hostile environment” claim arises when

discriminatory harassment taking place at the

institution is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively

offensive” that it effectively denies victims equal

access to the institution’s benefits—such as

educational or workplace opportunities. Davis, 526

U.S. at 651–52. That is determined from a

“constellation

surrounding

circumstances,

expectations, and relationships.” Id. The covered

institution’s indifference to a “hostile environment” is

what is actionable, even if the environment is created

by the plaintiff’s peers, coworkers, or classmates, and

not the institution itself. Id.1

Courts further recognize that both speech and

conduct—alone or in combination—can create an

actionable hostile environment. For example, the

Fourth Circuit upheld a hostile environment claim

based on misogynistic speech and chants for violence

1 As this Court has strongly implied and lower courts uniformly

hold, there is no meaningful difference—besides the nature of the

protected characteristic—between hostile environment claims

under Title VI, Title VII, and Title IX because of their materially

identical language regarding discrimination. See, e.g., Sewell v.

Monroe City Sch. Bd., 974 F.3d 577, 584 n.2 (5th Cir. 2020); see

also Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of

Harv. Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 302 (2023) (Gorsuch, J., concurring).

against women. See Feminist Majority Found. v.

Hurley, 911 F.3d 674, 693 (4th Cir. 2018). The Tenth

Circuit upheld a hostile environment claim based on

racially harassing speech and T-shirts against Black

students. Bryant v. Indep. Sch. Dist., 334 F.3d 928

(10th Cir. 2003); see also Fennell v. Marion Indep. Sch.

Dist., 804 F.3d 398 (5th Cir. 2015) (Title VI hostile

environment claim based on noose, racial epithets,

and slurs); Zeno v. Pine Plains Cent. Sch. Dist., 702

F.3d 655 (2d Cir. 2012) (Title VI hostile environment

claim based on slurs, bullying, and physical assault).

Discrimination against Jews constitutes racial

discrimination. Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb,

481 U.S. 615, 617 (1987). Federal courts (and

executive agencies) have consistently recognized that,

because Jews have a shared ancestry, they are also

covered under Title VI’s national origin protections.

See, e.g., Canel v. Art Inst. of Chi., No. 23-cv-17064,

2025 WL 564504, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 20, 2025) (noting

antisemitism can be actionable under Title VI

regardless of whether it is national origin or racial

discrimination); Kenneth L. Marcus, Title VI and Title

IX Religious Discrimination in Schools and Colleges,

U.S. DEP’T OF EDUC.

(Sept.

13,

2004),

https://perma.cc/WRV3-DHNE

(noting

the

“commingled” nature of antisemitic discrimination).

B. Factual Background

This case arises from well-pleaded allegations of

antisemitism on MIT’s campus. As has been widely

reported after the Hamas terror attacks on October 7,

2023, many college campuses became embroiled in

riots, protests, disruptions, and various forms of

antisemitic harassment. The events at MIT were

particularly egregious. Students there not only yelled

antisemitic chants and called for violence against

Jews, but they targeted Jewish students and faculty,

assaulted them and impeded their access to public

places, defaced and destroyed their property, and

violated multiple school rules in the process. See App.

2a–13a, 49a–53a. MIT knew of these violations, but

failed to take sufficient steps to address and deter the

scourge of antisemitism. See, e.g., App. 6a–7a, 10a–

11a, 51a.2

1. MIT’s policies are designed to create “a living,

working, and learning environment that is free from

discrimination and discriminatory harassment.” Am.

Complaint ¶ 45, StandWithUs, No. 24-cv-10577-RGS

(D. Mass. May 17, 2024), ECF 40 (hereinafter “Am.

Compl.”). To ensure deterrence, those who violate the

policies can be put on probation, suspended, expelled,

or have their degrees revoked. Id. ¶ 48.

MIT’s policies prohibit “harassment,” which is

defined as “unwelcome conduct of a verbal, nonverbal

or physical nature that is sufficiently severe or

pervasive to create a work or academic environment

that a reasonable person would consider intimidating,

hostile or abusive and that adversely affects an

individual’s

educational,

work,

living

environment.” Id. ¶ 51. Examples of harassment

include “[p]ublic and personal tirades; deliberate and

repeated humiliation[;] the use of certain racial

epithets; [and] deliberate desecration of religious

articles or places.” Id. While students may protest,

2 As this appeal arises out of the granting of a motion to dismiss,

the factual assertions in the amended complaint are presented

as established facts. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.

544, 555 (2007).

they cannot do so “for purposes of harassment,

discrimination, retaliation, invasion of personal

privacy, defamation, threats or violence, targeting of

groups or individuals.” Id. ¶ 65.

2. After October 7, students at MIT immediately

and aggressively disrupted campus life for Jews.

Protesters assaulted Jews and impeded their

movement on campus. One Jewish student tried to

record an unauthorized protest on open campus

property but was shoved by a protester. Id. ¶ 176; App.

5a–6a. Other Jewish students were prevented from

attending classes and accessing buildings. Am.

Compl. ¶ 179.

Protesters stopped classes by shouting, unfurling

flags, and using megaphones. Id. ¶ 159. Student

groups held rallies at unauthorized places and times

and hung posters where they were not permitted to do

so. Id. ¶ 160. Protesters defaced and tore down Israeli

posters and flags. Id. ¶ 242; see also App. 12a.

Many students ostracized and harassed their

Jewish classmates. Three days after October 7,

students wrote “Free Palestine” and “Occupation on

Gaza” in chalk directly outside a vigil organized by

Jewish students for victims of Hamas’s terror attacks.

App. 3a. Jewish students who attempted to push back

against false claims were met with online harassment

and ostracism, and faculty who conducted Israelrelated research were threatened with public

shaming. App. 3a–4a; Am. Compl. ¶ 217.

For months, the protesters were permitted to block

access and even shut down streets, as they called for

violence against Jews, chanting: “There is only one

solution! Intifada revolution!” App. 4a, 68a. That

phrase invokes both Hitler’s “Final Solution” (i.e.,

mass extermination of Jews) and the Palestinian

terror attacks of the 1990s and 2000s that killed over

one thousand Israelis. Am. Compl. ¶ 186. Protesters

also chanted several phrases that call for the violent

destruction of Israel’s Jewish population, including

“From the river to the sea”; “Resistance is justified”;

and, in Arabic, “The iron gates of Al Aqsa, open for the

martyr!” App. 5a, 7a, 12a; Am. Compl. ¶ 236.

Protesters specifically disrupted Jewish life and

religious practice, choosing to rally in front of MIT’s

Hillel—a primary campus location where Jewish

students gather to participate in religious and other

cultural activities. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 204, 221; App. 6a

n.4, 30a–32a, 51a, 69a n.2.

The antisemitic disruptions on MIT’s campus

reached their height in the spring of 2024, when

approximately thirty students established an

“encampment” on Kresge Lawn, directly adjacent to

Hillel. App. 9a–12a. The encampment displayed

several “overtly discriminatory and antisemitic” signs

and served as a locus for protesters to organize their

harassing chants. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 221–22. As a result,

a Passover seder scheduled at Hillel in April 2024 had

to be moved because of insufficient protections from

harassment and disruption. App. 30a–31a.

3. While MIT vigorously enforces its policies to

protect other minorities—often in ways that go far

beyond what Petitioners here ever requested—it has

not done so to address the antisemitism on its campus.

See Am. Compl. ¶ 268.

At the outset, MIT knew about the unlawful

protests and encampments, acknowledging that

protesters violated school rules. President Kornbluth

stated, “[f]rom the start, this encampment has been a

clear violation of [MIT’s] procedures for registering

and reserving space for campus demonstrations,” and

described the chants as “quite disturbing.” Am.

Compl. ¶¶ 180, 227.

Yet MIT did not send police or discipline students

who participated in unlawful protests. Instead, it

issued milquetoast statements reiterating school

policies and reminding students that they were not

permitted to disrupt living, working, and learning

spaces at MIT. These reminders did not work.

Rather than punish and deter rule violations to

create a safe environment for everyone, MIT put the

onus on Jewish students by urging them not to

counterprotest. Am. Compl. ¶ 224; App. 10a. And

while MIT allowed protesters to put up posters

expressing hostility toward Jews and Israelis in

violation of school rules, it required that posters

expressing the views of Jewish and pro-Israel voices

be removed. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 254–56.

Recognizing there was an antisemitism problem,

MIT created an advisory group. Yet Jewish faculty

members quickly resigned from the group because it

was not taking meaningful action. App. 7a.

Jewish students repeatedly pleaded with MIT to

act. See, e.g., App. 10a, 51a. The Anti-Defamation

League gave MIT an “F” on its campus report card in

January 2024, and members of Congress urged

President Kornbluth to take proactive measures. Am.

Compl. ¶¶ 38, 111.

MIT failed to do so. In May 2024, as the illegal

encampments continued on MIT’s campus, President

Kornbluth threatened students who refused to

disperse with interim suspension from “non-academic

campus activities” and referral to the “Ad Hoc

Complaint Response Team.” App. 6a. But when the

students refused to disperse by her deadline—in some

cases, at the urging of their professors—they faced no

known discipline. Id.; Am. Compl. ¶ 238.

C. Procedural History

On March 7, 2024, Petitioners filed their initial

complaint in the District of Massachusetts, alleging

antisemitic discrimination in violation of Title VI. Yet

antisemitism continued to swell on campus, with

protesters setting up encampments that lasted from

April 21 to May 10. Petitioners filed an amended

complaint on May 17, 2024.

The district court dismissed the amended

complaint on the pleadings for failure to state a claim.

See App. 62a.

The First Circuit affirmed. App. 2a. First, it held

that the allegations, taken together, did not

demonstrate an overall “hostile environment” that

was actionable. App. 14a–16a. The First Circuit held

that the protesters’ speech and conduct were not

plausibly “driven by antisemitism” or antisemitic

animus, as the protesters did not realize or intend

that their strident anti-Zionism manifested in

antisemitic behavior. App. 27a. For that reason, the

disruption and harassment could not be “racist” under

Title VI and therefore was not actionable as a matter

of law. App. 21a–23a.

Even while recognizing that, “because the

encampment, in particular, took place across from

Hillel, its impact on Jewish students was plausibly

heightened,” the court summarily concluded there

was no plausible inference that the protesters chose

that location because of its proximity to Hillel. App.

30a. It further held, despite ample allegations to the

contrary, that the disruptive protests “were not, by

and large, antisemitic.” App. 34a. While there were

“incidents that were plausibly antisemitic and

targeted,” those incidents were not sufficiently severe

and pervasive to constitute actionable harassment. Id.

Second, the First Circuit held that Petitioners

“failed to allege actionable racial harassment”

because “most of the conduct about which [they]

complain is speech protected by the First

Amendment”—in particular, “political speech”

entitled to “special protection” in certain

circumstances—and such protected speech cannot, by

definition, form the basis of a Title VI hostile

environment claim. App. 15a–18a.

Petitioners moved for rehearing, which was

denied. App. 63a–64a. In a concurrence, Judge

Dunlap expressed his “concerns with the panel’s

approach,” particularly how it purported “to avoid

determining whether racist speech can be punished

under Title VI without violating the First

Amendment” by concluding that (1) “Title VI does not

require a university to ‘quash protected speech,’” and

(2) “the protesters’ actions ‘did not render their speech

antisemitic, much less unprotected.’” App. 65a–66a

(Dunlap, J., concurring). According to Judge Dunlap,

this approach “le[ft] open some important questions”

about the scope of Title VI liability. App. 66a.

Petitioners now respectfully ask this Court to

grant certiorari and resolve splits in the lower courts

on these issues of critical national importance.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

This Court Should Grant the Petition to

Resolve the Deep Circuit Split Over Whether

the Harassers’ Subjective Discriminatory

Intent Is an Element of a Federal Hostile

Environment Claim

This case presents an ideal opportunity to answer

a question that has sharply divided the federal Courts

of Appeals: whether, to state an actionable “hostile

environment” claim, a plaintiff must plausibly allege

and prove that her harassers had discriminatory

intent or animus, or whether the objectively hostile

nature of the environment suffices to support a claim.

1. Five federal Courts of Appeals hold that the

discriminatory intent of individuals perpetrating

harassment is not an element of “hostile environment”

claims under Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, and § 1981.

The Tenth Circuit considered the issue in Lounds

v. Lincare, Inc., 812 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 2015), where

a district court granted summary judgment for an

employer despite acknowledging that coworkers’

racial jokes and use of the n-word “could be considered

racially offensive by a reasonable jury,” because “the

alleged harassers acted with benign intent.” Id. at

1220–28. The Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that

“whether the alleged harasser’s purpose or intent was

to do harm . . . is legally immaterial.” Id. at 1230.

Because

employers

must

always

provide

nondiscriminatory working conditions to their

employees, the court explained that it makes no

difference if harassers intend to discriminate or do so

based on their ignorance; rather, what matters is the

“subjective and objective effect of their conduct.” Id. at

1228.

The Ninth Circuit has also held that plaintiffs “do

not need to prove that [their harassers] had a specific

intent to discriminate” to succeed in hostile

environment cases. EEOC v. Nat’l Educ. Ass’n, 422

F.3d 840, 844 (9th Cir. 2005). Thus, conduct can

constitute “unlawful sexual harassment even when

harassers do not realize that their conduct creates a

hostile working environment.” Ellison v. Brady, 924

F.2d 872, 880 (9th Cir. 1991). Even “[w]ell-intentioned

compliments” by coworkers can create a hostile

environment, “if a reasonable victim of the same sex

as the plaintiff would consider the comments

sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter a condition of

employment and create an abusive working

environment.” Id. That is so, according to the Ninth

Circuit, because the civil rights statutes are not “faultbased tort scheme[s]”; they impose liability on

employers for their actions in creating or failing to

respond to such harassment. Id. at 880.

Likewise, in Chapman v. Oakland Living Center,

Inc., 48 F.4th 222 (4th Cir. 2022), the Fourth Circuit

held that “harassment based on a protected

characteristic may be actionable where it has the

purpose or effect of unreasonably” creating a hostile

environment, which “is judged from the perspective of

a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position.” Id. at

231 (cleaned up). Thus, the Fourth Circuit held that

the repeated use of the n-word by the six-year-old son

of the plaintiff’s supervisor constituted a racially

hostile environment, rejecting the employer’s

argument that there was no actionable hostile

environment because the comments were “uttered by

a young child.” Id. at 231–32. The court explained that

“it matters not if the boy was too young to understand

the force of his words or if he lacked intent to harm

[the plaintiff].” Id. Instead, what matters is the effect

of the harasser’s conduct. Id.; see also Boyer-Liberto v.

Fontainebleau Corp., 786 F.3d 264, 282 (4th Cir. 2015)

(en banc) (“[I]ntent to create a hostile work

environment is not an element of a hostile

environment claim.”).

The Fifth Circuit has likewise held that it is

“improper[] [to] focus[] on the intent of those who

created the environment,” and that “it is not

necessary to show” such “intent in a case challenging

a discriminatory [] environment.” Vaughn v. Pool

Offshore Co., 683 F.2d 922, 925 n.3 (5th Cir. 1982).

Lastly, the Federal Circuit has similarly concluded

that, “where employees can reasonably perceive the

conduct in question to be hostile or abusive, the actor’s

lack of specific discriminatory intent does not prevent

his or her deliberate conduct from being actionable

under Title VII.” Newton v. Dep’t of the Air Force, 85

F.3d 595, 599 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (internal quotation

marks omitted); cf. King v. Frazier, 77 F.3d 1361, 1363

(Fed. Cir. 1995) (holding that arbitrator erred “by

introducing intent [of the harasser] as an element” of

a hostile environment charge).

2. In a sharp split with these circuits, three

circuits hold that discriminatory intent or animus by

the harassing actors is an element of a hostile

environment claim.

The First Circuit below held that, “[w]ithout . . . an

inference” of “antisemitic animus” by individual

harassers, the harassers’ conduct “cannot constitute

racial harassment for Title VI purposes.” App. 27a–

28a. To reach this conclusion, the court for the first

time extended its earlier direct discrimination

precedent (where subjective animus is an element) to

hostile environment claims. See Goodman v. Bowdoin

Coll., 380 F.3d 33, 43 (1st Cir. 2004); Doe v. Brown

Univ., 43 F.4th 195, 208 (1st Cir. 2022).

The Eleventh Circuit has also limited its analysis

of whether a plaintiff “experienced a racially hostile

work environment” to incidents that were “racially

motivated.” Jones v. UPS Ground Freight, 683 F.3d

1283, 1297 (11th Cir. 2012). Accordingly, a hostile

environment plaintiff must establish that the

harasser “intended” to be discriminatory. Id.; see also

Trask v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 822 F.3d 1179,

1196 (11th Cir. 2016) (lack of evidence that harasser’s

“hostility was in any way motivated by a

discriminatory animus” was “fatal” to plaintiffs’

claim).

Similarly, the D.C. Circuit has held that an

actionable hostile environment requires evidence that

the harasser’s hostility is “motivated by a

discriminatory animus.” Stewart v. Evans, 275 F.3d

1126, 1133 (D.C. Cir. 2002); see also Walston v. Foley

& Lardner, LLP, 516 F. App’x 1, 1 (D.C. Cir.

2013) (dismissing hostile work environment claims

because plaintiff “offered no evidence to suggest that

the alleged harassment was motivated by racial

discrimination”).

3. Underscoring the confusion, the remaining

circuits have published conflicting decisions on the

issue. The Eighth Circuit has held that “[t]he actor

who engages in the [harassment] need not have

the intent to create an abusive [] environment,” as

hostile environment claims are based on the “effect of

the conduct.” Crist v. Focus Homes, 122 F.3d 1107,

1111 (8th Cir. 1997). It further held that even when

harassment is not intended to harm women, “a finding

that [the harasser’s] conduct disproportionately

affected female staff could support a determination

that the harassment was based on sex.” Id.

Nonetheless, the Eighth Circuit recently granted

summary judgment to an employer because the

plaintiff-employee did not provide evidence about “the

offender’s motivation.” Bell v. Baptist Health, 60 F.4th

1198, 1205 (8th Cir. 2023); see also Linville v. Sears,

Roebuck & Co., 335 F.3d 822, 824 (8th Cir. 2003) (per

curiam).

Similarly, the Seventh Circuit has held that a

hostile environment is actionable even “when the

perpetrator” does not “act[] with a purpose to

discriminate.” Huff v. Sheahan, 493 F.3d 893, 903 (7th

Cir. 2007). “[S]o long as the environment itself is

hostile to the plaintiff because of her sex, why the

harassment was perpetrated (sexual interest?

Misogyny? Personal vendetta? Misguided humor?

Boredom?) is beside the point.” Doe v. City of

Belleville, 119 F.3d 563, 578 (7th Cir. 1997), vacated

on other grounds, 523 U.S. 1001 (1998). But in later

decisions, the court has required plaintiffs to show the

harassers acted with a “discriminatory motive.” Hall

v. City of Chicago, 713 F.3d 325, 333 (7th Cir. 2013).

So too in the Sixth Circuit. In Williams v. General

Motors Corp., 187 F.3d 553 (6th Cir. 1999), the court

held that the “intent of the alleged harasser is

irrelevant.” Id. at 566. Yet, in Arendale v. City of

Memphis, 519 F.3d 587 (6th Cir. 2008), a hostile

environment claim failed because there was no

“evidence of racial animus.” Id. at 605.

Finally, the Third Circuit held in Abramson v.

William Paterson College, 260 F.3d 265 (3d Cir. 2001),

that “[r]egardless of what a harasser’s intention is,”

hostile environment liability can attach when a

workplace is “permeated with discriminatory

intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently

severe or pervasive.” Id. at 278–79. Yet in Caver v.

City of Trenton, 420 F.3d 243 (3d Cir. 2005), it held

that evidence the harassment was “not racially

motivated” was “fatal to the hostile work environment

claim.” Id. at 265.

4. The First Circuit’s holding that plaintiffs must

show their harassers acted with hostile intent (i.e.,

“antisemitic animus”) not only deepens an entrenched

conflict—it is also wrong.

Because Title VI imposes responsibilities on

schools, not harassers, see Davis, 526 U.S. at 640–41,

liability turns not on the perpetrator’s mental state,

but on the school’s own conduct when confronted with

knowledge of a hostile environment. As this Court has

made clear, an environment is sufficiently hostile if it

“would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as

hostile or abusive.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 22; see also

Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S.

75, 81 (1998) (explaining the “severity of harassment

should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable

person in the plaintiff’s position”). It therefore makes

no difference whether the perpetrator of the

harassment intended to create a racially hostile

environment or had some other purpose in mind. The

effect of the harasser’s conduct is the same no matter

if done with benign intent or outright animus. And

that effect is what denies students the benefits of

educational opportunities, under Title VI or Title IX.

See Davis, 526 U.S. at 652.

Moreover, harassment can be race-based without

any animus from the harasser. All Title VI requires is

that the plaintiff be “subjected to discrimination” “on

the ground of race.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. To

discriminate, this Court has explained, means to

“treat” an individual “worse” than others who are

similarly situated. Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, 601

U.S. 346, 355 (2024); see also Webster’s New

International Dictionary 745 (2d ed. 1954) (“[t]o make

a distinction” or “[t]o make a difference in treatment

or favor (of one as compared with others)”). And “on

the ground of” simply equates to “because of”—which,

in the language of law, means Title VI incorporates

“the ‘simple’ and ‘traditional’ standard of but-for

causation.” Bostock v. Clayton Cnty., 590 U.S. 644,

656 (2020); see also Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v.

Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 346 (2013). So even if the

harassers harbored no ill will, an environment is

racially hostile “when it can be shown that but for the

[plaintiff’s] race, she would not have been the object of

harassment.” Clay v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 501

F.3d 695, 706 (6th Cir. 2007).

Those principles foreclose the view that hostile

environment claims are permitted only when the

harasser possesses racial animus. If that were true,

minorities would have to suffer at universities or

workplaces because of ignorant harassers who do not

know or intend for their abuse to harm others. That

contradicts the statutory text and flies in the face of

decades of this Court’s civil rights jurisprudence.

Indeed, Judge Easterbrook recognized this point over

twenty years ago, providing an oft-cited hypothetical

that captures the crux of the hostile environment

inquiry:

Suppose a patient [in the defendant Hospital]

kept a macaw in his room, that the bird bit and

scratched women but not men, and that the

Hospital did nothing. The Hospital would be

responsible for the decision to expose women to

the working conditions affected by the macaw,

even though the bird (a) was not an employee,

and (b) could not be controlled by reasoning or

sanctions. It would be the Hospital’s

responsibility to protect its female employees

by excluding the offending bird from its

premises.

Dunn v. Wash. Cnty. Hosp., 429 F.3d 689, 691 (7th

Cir. 2005). As the example illustrates, the source of

harassment simply does not matter. Instead, the right

question under Title VI is whether the school

tolerated those harassing “conditions.” Id.

To resolve this circuit split about the relevance of

harassers’ subjective intent, the Court should grant

certiorari.

II. This Court Should Grant the Petition to

Resolve the Circuit Split Created by the

First Circuit’s Invention of a Categorical

“Protected Speech” Exception to Federal

Anti-Discrimination Laws

This Court should grant the petition for the

independent reason that the First Circuit invalidated

Title VI’s protections against racial harassment in

educational environments as unconstitutional under

the First Amendment whenever the harassment takes

the form of otherwise protected speech. The First

Circuit nullified the statute in this respect without

conducting the required constitutional analysis under

any First Amendment strict scrutiny framework or

constitutional avoidance doctrine. See, e.g., Citizens

United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) (invalidating

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 to protect

“political speech” only after full constitutional

analysis); AID v. All. for Open Soc’y Int’l, Inc., 570

U.S. 205, 206 (2013) (articulating the framework for

reviewing funding conditions that may burden First

Amendment rights).

The First Circuit’s categorical First Amendment

exception has no basis in the statutory text or antidiscrimination precedents, and it departs sharply

from the decisions of other circuits. It is also a

nebulous and unmanageable exception that threatens

to swallow all forms of actionable race-based

discrimination by creating a false conflict between the

First Amendment and Title VI. And because the court

did “not lay out a comprehensive framework for

resolving” this purported “tension,” App. 66a (Dunlap,

J., concurring), the decision below creates confusion—

itself a constitutional concern. Cf. Citizens United, 558

U.S. at 326–27. This Court’s guidance is necessary, as

“[i]t is not judicial restraint to accept an unsound,

narrow argument just so the Court can avoid another

argument with broader implications.” Id. at 329.

1. A student or employee can be subjected to a

hostile environment based on a peer or colleague’s

speech that would be “protected” outside the

workplace or campus setting. Generally, individuals

are free under the First Amendment to use racial

slurs, make ethnic taunts, and display hateful

symbols while being protected from government

censorship. See, e.g., Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218, 223

(2017); Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d

200, 204 (3d Cir. 2001).

Nevertheless, courts properly applying this

Court’s holding in Davis find that spoken words can

create a hostile environment when they are “so severe,

pervasive, and objectively offensive, and [] so

undermine[] and detract[] from the victims’

educational experience, that the victim-students are

effectively denied equal access to an institution’s

resources and opportunities.” 526 U.S. at 651; cf.

Meritor Sav. Bank, 477 U.S. at 67 (describing the Title

VII origins of this doctrine).

For example, in Bryant, the Tenth Circuit

sustained a hostile environment claim based on racial

slurs, swastikas, nooses, “KKK” graffiti, and

Confederate flag symbols at a school, notwithstanding

that such expression could not generally be prohibited

by the government under the First Amendment. 334

F.3d at 931–33.

Similarly, in Zeno, the Second Circuit affirmed a

Title VI verdict based on racial slurs and offensive

comments without considering whether those

statements were protected speech. 702 F.3d 655.

Instead, it applied the Davis standard, concluding

that their cumulative effect meant a reasonable jury

could have found “severe, pervasive, and objectively

offensive” harassment. Id. at 666.

Similarly, in Fennell, the Fifth Circuit applied

Davis to evaluate a hostile environment claim based

on racial slurs, noose incidents, and offensive

comments. 804 F.3d at 402–09. As in Bryant and Zeno,

the court did not consider whether such expression

was protected speech, but whether it was “so severe,

pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it deprived

the plaintiffs of educational opportunities. Id. at 402–

10 (quoting Davis, 526 U.S. at 650).

2. These cases rightly recognize that otherwise

applicable First Amendment standards are not

imported into the federal anti-discrimination laws,

which are exercises of the government’s “broad power

under the Spending Clause of the Constitution to set

the terms on which it disburses federal funds.”

Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U.S.

212, 216 (2022). In this sense, Title VI (and related

statutes, like Title IX) are “much in the nature of a

contract: in return for federal funds, the [recipients]

agree to comply with federally imposed conditions,”

including to not discriminate on the basis of protected

characteristics. Id. (quoting Pennhurst State Sch. &

Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17 (1981)).

This Court has recognized that Title VI “rests not

on [the government’s] sovereign authority to enact

binding laws, but on ‘whether the [recipient]

voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms’” of the

“contract.” Cummings, 596 U.S. at 219 (quoting

Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 186 (2002)). And it

has further recognized that, under this “contract-law

analogy,” a recipient of federal funds “may be held

liable to third-party beneficiaries”—i.e., students—for

statutory violations. Barnes, 536 U.S. at 186–87

(citing Davis, 526 U.S. at 642). This is because,

“[w]hen a federal-funds recipient violates conditions

of Spending Clause legislation, the wrong done is the

failure to provide what the contractual obligation

requires; and that wrong is ‘made good’ when the

recipient compensates the Federal Government or a

third-party beneficiary . . . for the loss caused by that

failure.” Id. at 189.

Private universities are not required to take

federal funds. But when they do, they agree to certain

terms, including that they will not permit students or

faculty to create a hostile learning environment,

whether through actions or speech. By analogy to

other “promise[s] . . . made in the context of a

contractual relationship,” “[t]he First Amendment

does not support [a university’s] right to renege” on its

“self-imposed” legal obligations. Belgau v. Inslee, 975

F.3d 940, 950 (9th Cir. 2020) (citing Cohen v. Cowles

Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 671 (1991)). Nor do students,

faculty members, or campus organizations have a

freestanding First Amendment right to force their

universities to disregard their obligation to provide a

safe and orderly educational environment, free of

unlawful discrimination. Cf. Healy v. James, 408 U.S.

169, 192–93 (1972) (students’ First Amendment rights

are “in no sense infringed” when a university exercises

its “inherent power to promulgate rules and

regulations”); Grove City Coll. v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555,

575–76 (1984) (“Requiring Grove City to comply with

Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination as a condition

for its continued eligibility to participate in [a federal]

program infringes no First Amendment rights of the

College or its students.”).

3. The First Circuit, however, charted a different,

and deeply problematic, course in the decision below.

In its view, it is unclear “under what circumstances, if

any, can racist speech be punished pursuant to Title

VI without violating the First Amendment,” App.

21a–22a—even though courts repeatedly hold that

racist speech creates a hostile environment when it

meets the Davis standard. So, the First Circuit

avoided that question by holding that “the disruptive

protests and campsite gatherings” were a “special”

form of protected speech—that is, “classically political

speech,” accomplished through “time-worn methods of

grabbing more attention for the broadcast of the

protestors’ political views”—and that such protected

speech cannot, as a matter of law, “constitute[]

antisemitic harassment actionable under Title VI.”

App. 16a, 30a–31a. The court reasoned that “our

Constitution bars the government from forcing a

private university to prohibit students from voicing

vehement support for, or opposition to, the policies

and conduct of the United States and its allies.” App.

29a.

The First Circuit’s holding has no basis in the text

or history of Title VI or federal anti-discrimination

law, and it conflicts with this Court’s decision in Davis

and the Tenth, Second, and Fifth Circuit decisions

above that properly applied the Davis standard. And

though the First Circuit purported to reach this

conclusion based on a quasi-constitutional-avoidance

interpretation of Title VI, there is neither a “protected

speech” exception, nor a subcategory for “political

speech” that receives “special protection,” in antidiscrimination law. See App. 16a–17a, 21a, 27a.

To the contrary, the First Circuit grafted its novel

protected and political speech exception onto Title

VI—an exercise of the government’s spending power

to condition the expenditure of taxpayer funds on

nondiscriminatory practices—from traditional, nonTitle VI First Amendment cases limiting the

government’s sovereign power to punish individuals

for the content of their speech.

For example, the First Circuit relied on Snyder v.

Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011), Texas v. Johnson, 491

U.S. 397 (1989), and Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536

(1965), for the propositions that political speech

receives “special protection under the First

Amendment,” and that laws punishing political

expression are “subject to ‘the most exacting’ First

Amendment scrutiny.” App. 16a, 19a.

But those cases express constitutional principles

regarding the limits to the government’s sovereign

power to punish protected speech; they are

inapplicable to the legal obligations of funding

recipients under federal anti-discrimination laws like

Title VI. Compare Snyder, 562 U.S. at 460 (First

Amendment defense against state tort liability), and

Johnson, 491 U.S. at 399–403 (First Amendment

defense against criminal conviction under state flagdesecration statute), with Davis, 526 U.S. at 653 (antidiscrimination “liability may arise when a funding

recipient remains indifferent to severe, [protected

class]-based mistreatment played out on a

‘widespread level’ among students”).

The First Circuit, in other words, replaced the

“well settled” Title VI statutory framework, see

Barnes, 536 U.S. at 189, with an inapplicable

protected vs. unprotected speech standard imported

from First Amendment sovereign-regulation cases,

making only one passing reference to the proper

spending-power framework. See App. 21a (citing AID,

570 U.S. at 205). The result is a holding that

undermines federal anti-discrimination statutes and

ignores this Court’s related jurisprudence.

4. In addition to lacking proper statutory and

doctrinal grounding, the First Circuit’s novel First

Amendment holding creates an unmanageable

standard that departs from Davis’s functional test,

creates a false conflict between the First Amendment

and Title VI, and renders decades of hostile

environment jurisprudence meaningless. Whether

harassment takes the form of “protected” or “political

speech” (including expressive conduct) has no bearing

on whether it “denies its victims the equal access to

education that Title [VI] is designed to protect.” Davis,

526 U.S. at 652. And it is not difficult to see how

decisions that properly apply this principle would

come out differently under the First Circuit’s contrary

standard.

In Bryant, for example, the court would have been

unable to find a hostile environment when “Caucasian

males were allowed to wear T-shirts adorned with the

confederate flag, swastikas, [and] KKK symbols,” 334

F.3d at 932–33, as each of those symbols is political in

nature and protected from direct government

censorship under the First Amendment. See, e.g.,

Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 365 (2003) (crossburning, while often intimidating to onlookers, may

constitute “core political speech”); Johnson, 491 U.S.

at 414; R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382–

83 (1992).

Similarly, in Fennell, the series of racially

harassing incidents—including comments about “all

black people [being] on welfare” and a “text

message . . . that showed an animation of KKK

members chasing President Obama”—could be said to

“relat[e] to any matter” of political commentary, App.

18a n.10, and thus would be immunized under the

First Circuit’s standard. See 804 F.3d at 404–05.

In fact, because almost all expressive speech or

conduct involving race, color, or national origin “deals

with matters of public concern” by virtue of those

topics, the First Circuit would immunize this common

form of harassment from the scope of Title VI liability

unless the comments or acts independently fall under

the narrow categories of speech unprotected by the

First Amendment. See App. 18a n.10, 20a (quoting

Snyder, 562 U.S. at 453). The First Circuit’s holdings

taken together thereby create a catch-22—expression

must be “driven by” a subjective intent to give rise to

a hostile environment, App. 27a, but any such “intent

to convey a particularized message” triggers a First

Amendment override of Title VI, Johnson, 491 U.S. at

404.

This is not a result that Title VI and Davis permit,

and it is fundamentally incompatible with the

reasoned decisions of the Tenth, Second, and Fifth

Circuits described above. Ultimately, the First

Amendment does not, as the First Circuit would have

it, trump or negate Title VI when protected speech is

present. Rather, the two provisions work together: If

speech whose content is generally protected is used to

harass members of a protected class, it may create a

hostile environment triggering the funding recipient’s

obligation to respond reasonably. The First

Amendment does not alleviate that obligation, even if

it may limit what actions a public entity may be

permitted (or required by a court) to take in crafting a

reasonable response. See Veksler v. Regents of the

Univ. of Cal., No. 25-cv-11745, slip op. at 17 (C.D. Cal.

June 12, 2026) (“The Court recognizes that the [public

university] was required to take into account its

obligations under the First Amendment when

responding

alleged

discrimination

and

harassment.”).

This Court’s review is necessary to resolve this

split in the circuits and clarify that there is no

categorical First Amendment exception to the hostile

environment

inquiry

under

federal

antidiscrimination laws.

III. This Case Is an Ideal Vehicle to Address

Recurring Issues of National Importance

The First Circuit’s errors deepen circuit splits and

add to confusion surrounding hostile environment

claims. They will also have grave consequences for

Americans of all backgrounds seeking redress for

unlawful discrimination. This is an issue of profound

national importance, and this case is a clean vehicle

for this Court to resolve the questions it presents. On

this basis, too, the Court should grant certiorari.

First, this case is a clean vehicle. The First Circuit

affirmed dismissal at the pleadings stage, deciding as

a matter of law both whether subjective animus is a

required element of a hostile environment claim, and

whether protected speech can form the basis of a

hostile environment that triggers Title VI obligations.

This Court can address these purely legal issues

without considering any disputes of fact.3

Though one judge suggested on rehearing that Petitioners

“conceded on appeal” that “only conduct or speech not protected

by the First Amendment could give rise to liability under” Title

VI, App. 66a (Dunlap, J., concurring), Petitioners made no such

concession at any point. See Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Reply Br. at

21, StandWithUs, No. 24-1800 (1st Cir. Mar. 27, 2025) (“There is

ample room between the First Amendment and Title VI for

institutions to curtail harassing speech.”); Pet. for Rehearing at

12, StandWithUs, No. 24-1800 (1st Cir. Nov. 25, 2025) (“[T]he

discriminatory and harassing course of conduct triggered MIT’s

Title VI obligations . . . even though the harassment was

conducted primarily through speech, and even if the content of

such speech may have been protected by the First Amendment.”).

By contrast, the First Circuit went beyond what Respondent ever

argued to fashion a blanket protected speech carveout from

federal anti-discrimination laws. Cf. Margolin v. Nat’l Ass’n of

Immigr. Judges, 146 S. Ct. 1285, 1288–89 (2026) (per curiam).

Further, although the First Circuit purported to

offer alternative holdings on hostile environment and

deliberate indifference, the court’s deliberate

indifference discussion was premised on its blinkered

view of “the nature of the activity that plaintiffs say

MIT should have eliminated more quickly.” App. 37a.

And because the First Circuit already concluded that

such “activity” was (1) not subjectively antisemitic,

and (2) subject to absolute First Amendment

protection because it was merely about “the political

divide among [MIT] students,” it limited its analysis

to whether MIT took reasonable actions to “prevent[]

the on-campus conflict from exploding into real

violence,” as opposed to whether MIT reasonably

attempted to remedy the multi-faceted hostile

environment that Petitioners alleged. App. 36a, 38a.

In other words, the First Circuit’s deliberate

indifference holding is intertwined with its hostile

environment confusion about subjective animus and

First Amendment principles.

Thus, the First Circuit failed to grapple with the

conditional nature of these inquiries—i.e., that the

deliberate indifference inquiry asks whether a

school’s “response to the harassment or lack thereof is

clearly unreasonable in light of the known

circumstances” of the hostile environment. Davis, 526

U.S. at 648 (emphasis added); see also Grace v. Bd. of

Trs., 85 F.4th 1, 14 (1st Cir. 2023) (asking whether

“school officials . . . offer[ed] suitable remedial

measures in light of the claimed harassment”).

Similarly, other courts have held that whether a

response is “reasonable” necessarily turns on the

severity of the underlying harassment. See Menzia v.

Austin Indep. Sch. Dist., 47 F.4th 354, 361 (5th Cir.

2022) (holding the “evaluation of the reasonableness

of a [school’s] responses” must be made “in light of the

severity of the harassment”). As such, the First

Circuit could not reach its purportedly “alternative”

deliberate-indifference holding that “MIT’s response

was not ‘clearly unreasonable’” unless it properly

applied the hostile environment inquiry first. As

explained above, it did not.

Second, the wide-ranging national consequences of

the questions presented—and the broad impact of the

oft-cited decision below—call for this Court’s review.

Since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks and the

wave of antisemitic incidents that followed on college

campuses, federal courts have seen a rise in Title VI

claims by Jewish students seeking to vindicate their

civil rights.4 Courts properly applying Davis, such as

the court in Kestenbaum v. President & Fellows of

Harvard College, 743 F. Supp. 3d 297 (D. Mass. 2024),

permitted those claims to move forward, and rejected

university defendants’ attempts to “hide behind the

First Amendment to justify avoidance of [] Title VI

obligations.” Id. at 309.

The decision below, however, changed that

landscape—and has repeatedly been relied on by

lower courts to reject otherwise cognizable Title VI

claims on purported First Amendment grounds. In

fact, the same judge who denied a motion to dismiss

before the decision below in both Kestenbaum and

Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under

Law v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, No.

See generally Special Collection: Title VI AntiPalestinian/Antisemitism Cases, C.R. LITIG. CLEARINGHOUSE,

https://clearinghouse.net/collections/39089 (last visited June 16,

2026) (collecting cases).

24-cv-11354-RGS, 2024 WL 4681802, at *5 (D. Mass.

Nov. 5, 2024), later dismissed an essentially identical

claim, relying on the decision below. See Segev v.

President & Fellows of Harv. Coll., No. 24-cv-12646RGS (D. Mass. Dec. 4, 2025).5 Other district courts

have followed suit. See, e.g., Canel v. Art Inst. of Chi.,

No. 23-cv-17064, 2026 WL 776580, at *11 (N.D. Ill.

Mar. 19, 2026); Doe v. Nw. Univ., No. 24-cv-04831,

2026 WL 607423, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 3, 2026).

The need for review is further underscored by the

divergence between the judiciary and the Executive

Branch. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued

findings against major universities for inadequate

responses to antisemitic harassment, resulting in

consent decrees and significant settlements.6 Notably,

OCR has made its position clear that, “if the

harassment creates a hostile environment,” “[t]he fact

that harassment may involve conduct that includes

speech in a public setting or speech that is also

motivated by political or religious beliefs . . . does not

relieve a school of its obligation to respond under Title

VI.” OCR, Dear Colleague Letter: Protecting Students

from Discrimination, such as Harassment, Based on

5 The plaintiff in Segev had been a student-member of the Louis

D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, and his

allegations were featured heavily in that organization’s

complaint. See Brandeis Ctr., 2024 WL 4681802, at *2. Moreover,

the district court in Kestenbaum held that Jewish students were

subject to pervasive harassment at Harvard in part due to the

allegations that would later form the basis of the Segev plaintiff’s

complaint. See Kestenbaum, 743 F. Supp. 3d at 304, 308.

See, e.g., The United States Announces Agreement with

Northwestern University, U.S. DEP’T OF JUST. (Nov. 28, 2025),

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-announcesagreement-northwestern-university.

Race, Color, or National Origin, Including Shared

Ancestry or Ethnic Characteristics, U.S. DEP’T OF

EDUC. (May 7, 2024). Only this Court can resolve this

fundamental inconsistency between the Executive

Branch and the First Circuit.

Moreover, the implications of the decision below

are not confined to Jewish students or to the

contemporary landscape surrounding post-October 7

campus antisemitism. The First Circuit’s hostile

environment holdings would eviscerate the civil rights

protections that students of all backgrounds enjoy.

Should the decision below stand, a federally

funded school could decline to take meaningful action

when students harass their Black classmates by

chanting “the South will rise again,” waving

Confederate flags, and circulating calls to “repeal the

Thirteenth Amendment,” so long as such harassment

is subjectively framed as protected “political speech”

about federalism and issues of public concern. The

result is a regime in which expressive harassment of

the kind that often creates racially hostile

environments will be widely immunized.

This Court should grant review to articulate the

governing test for Title VI hostile environment claims,

resolve the circuit split over whether animus-based

intent is an element of the inquiry, and clarify that

civil-rights protections against hostile environments

at institutions that take federal funds do not vanish

simply because the hostile environment is created by

words or expressive conduct.

CONCLUSION

This Court should grant the petition for writ of

certiorari.

Respectfully submitted,

Jason B. Torchinsky

Andreas N. Episkopos

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

2300 N St. NW, Suite

643

Washington, D.C. 20037

Susan L. Greene

Saritha Komatireddy

Akiva Shapiro

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

1325 Avenue of the

Americas

Suite 2843

New York, NY 10019

Glenn A. Danas

CLARKSON LAW FIRM,

P.C.

22525 Pacific Coast Hwy

Malibu, CA 90265

Christopher Mills

Counsel of Record

SPERO LAW LLC

557 East Bay St. #22251

Charleston, SC 29413

(843) 606-0640

cmills@spero.law

Mark I. Pinkert

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

2333 Ponce de Leon

Blvd., Suite 600

Coral Gables, FL 33134

Jared S. Bauman

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

1221 Broadway, Suite

2100

Nashville, TN 37203

Carly F. Gammill

STANDWITHUS SAIDOFF

LAW

P.O. Box 341069

Los Angeles, CA 90034

Counsel for Petitioners

JUNE 18, 2026

APPENDIX

APPENDIX TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Appendix A: U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit, Opinion (October 21, 2025) ...........

Appendix B: U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit, Judgment (October 21, 2025) .......

47a

Appendix C: District Court of Massachusetts,

Memorandum Opinion and Order (July 30,

2024) .....................................................................

48a

Appendix D: District Court of Massachusetts,

Order of Dismissal (August 21, 2024) .................

62a

Appendix E: U.S. Court of Appeals for the

First Circuit, Order Denying Rehearing

(January 21, 2026) ...............................................

63a

APPENDIX A

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

————

No. 24-1800

————

STAND WITH US CENTER FOR LEGAL JUSTICE;

KATERINA BOUKIN; MARILYN MEYERS,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,

Defendant, Appellee.

————

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT

COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]

————

Before

Gelpí and Kayatta, Circuit Judges,

and Smith, District Judge*

————

Glenn A. Danas, with whom Ashley M. Boulton,

Clarkson Law Firm, P.C., Melissa S. Weiner, Pearson

Warshaw, LLP, Marlene J. Goldenberg, and Nigh

Goldenberg Raso & Vaughn, PLLC were on brief, for

appellants.

Of the District of Rhode Island, sitting by designation.

Ishan K. Bhabha, with whom Lauren J. Hartz, Jenner

& Block LLP, Daryl J. Lapp, and Troutman Pepper

Locke LLP were on brief, for appellee.

————

October 21, 2025

————

KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. This case emerges from a

school year of tension among students, faculty, and

administrators at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT) in response to extraordinary violence

in the Middle East. Two plaintiffs are MIT students.

The third is StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, the

legal arm of a California-based membership organization “dedicated to combatting antisemitism.” Together,

plaintiffs allege that MIT failed to take sufficient action to

curtail a surge of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian student

protests, thereby allegedly subjecting MIT’s Jewish

and Israeli students to antisemitic harassment. The

district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a

claim. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

We begin by summarizing the facts not as they

necessarily are, but as plaintiffs allege them to be,

drawing all reasonable factual inferences in plaintiffs’

favor. See Douglas v. Hirshon, 63 F.4th 49, 55 (1st Cir.

2023); Watterson v. Page, 987 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1993).

On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian group Hamas

launched a grotesque attack on Israel, intentionally

killing hundreds of unarmed civilians and taking

many others hostage. That same day, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, a student group recognized

at the time by the university, reposted tweets from

other accounts stating: “Palestinians cannot invade

Palestine”; “What is happening in occupied Palestine

is a response to weeks and months and years of daily

Israeli military invasions into Palestinian towns,

killing of Palestinians, and the very fact that millions

of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are besieged under

Israeli blockade”; and “Progressive commentators

saying Palestinians have entered ‘Israeli territory’ . . .

baby, check yourselves. You’re part of the problem.”

The following day, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid and another student group, Palestine@MIT,

sent an email to all undergraduate students with a

“Joint Statement on the Current Situation in Palestine.”

The statement said, among other things, that the

student groups “h[e]ld the Israeli regime responsible

for all unfolding violence”; “unequivocally denounce[d]

the Israeli occupation, its racist apartheid system, and

its military rule”; and “affirm[ed] the right of all

occupied people to resist oppression and colonization.”

It was signed “[u]ntil liberation.” An Instagram post by

Palestine@MIT indicated that the MIT Black Graduate

Student Association and a group named MIT Reading

for Revolution also supported the joint statement.

On October 10, 2023, pro-Palestinian students wrote

“Free Palestine” and “Occupation on Gaza” in chalk

outside a vigil organized by Jewish students. Seven

days later, a student from the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid sent an email to all student group members

at MIT stating that “Israel dropped bombs on the

al-Ahli Arab Hospital” and killed “[o]ver 500 people

and counting” – an allegation plaintiffs say was

later “discredited by a variety of governmental and

independent sources.” Jewish students “responded

by sharing information which discredited this rumor”

but “were attacked online by their peers,” and one

unidentified student “felt they could no longer

participate” in a study group because of this criticism.

On October 19, 2023, pro-Palestinian students led by

the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid held a rally

outside the MIT Student Center, at which attendees

chanted “Palestine will be free, from the river to

the sea!” and “There is only one solution! Intifada

revolution!”1 Plaintiff Meyers and another Jewish

student were approached by one rally attendee who

“raised the front wheels of his bike at them” and said,

in reference to Holocaust victims, “Your ancestors

didn’t die to kill more people.” This rally caused plaintiffs and other Jewish and Israeli students to feel

unsafe or unwelcome on campus. MIT knew about the

rally through reports, security monitoring of events,

and “other means.”

Four days later, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid staged a walkout in which an unspecified number

of protestors left classes, disrupted some other classes

by shouting and unfurling Palestinian flags, and

gathered in the vicinity of Lobby 7, a major thoroughfare through which Plaintiffs Boukin and Meyers often

traveled to attend classes and on-campus events.

Lobby 7 was not a permitted protest area. The

following week, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid

organized a “Die In” in Lobby 7 and taped posters of

Plaintiffs’ complaint states that “From the River to the Sea”

is “a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River

to the Mediterranean Sea . . . which would mean the dismantling

of the Jewish state.” The complaint also states that “intifada”

means “uprising” or “shaking off” and is “used to describe periods

of intense Palestinian protest against Israel,” which have

historically included “violence” and “mass suicide bombings.”

Gazans on lecture halls and campus buildings.2 MIT

did not halt the “Die In.”

On November 2, 2023, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid staged a fourth event, this time outside the

offices of Jewish professors and MIT’s Israel internship program, MISTI.3 Protestors rattled the door

handles of offices, chanted “From the river to the

sea” and “MISTI, MISTI, you can’t hide,” and verbally

charged “MISTI with genocide.” Staff members

“reported feeling alarmed, intimidated, and even

afraid.” Plaintiffs do not allege that they or any Jewish

or Israeli students were present during this activity.

MIT did not send police or discipline students who

participated in any of those four protest events.

Rather, six days after the fourth alleged protest, MIT

issued a communication outlining more restrictive

policies around campus protests, postering, and free

expression. The policies indicated, among other things,

that students were not permitted to disrupt living,

working, and learning spaces at MIT, and that large

banners and flags could not be displayed.

The next day, November 9, 2023, the MIT Coalition

Against Apartheid, Coalition for Palestine, and other

student groups led another protest in Lobby 7.

The protestors included MIT faculty and staff and

members of the general public. Protest chants included

“[F]rom the river to the sea,” “Resistance is justified,”

and calls for “intifada.” A Jewish student recording the

protest on her phone was shoved by an unidentified

Plaintiffs offer no further information as to what this “Die In”

entailed.

MISTI stands for MIT International Science and Technology

Initiatives.

protestor. MIT Hillel cautioned Jewish students not to

“directly engage the protestors for your physical safety

and wellbeing” and suggested that they “choose paths

around campus that avoid Lobby 7.”

At 12:00 p.m., four hours after the protest began,

MIT officials warned protestors that they could be

disciplined if they did not leave Lobby 7 in the next

fifteen minutes. While a group of Jewish counterprotestors departed as ordered, the pro-Palestinian

protestors did not comply. Afterward, MIT President

Sally Kornbluth sent a letter to the MIT community

regarding the protest, stating that it was “disruptive,

loud, and sustained through the morning hours,” that

it violated “MIT guidelines and policies,” that “the

administration had serious concerns that it could lead

to violence,” and thus that “the administration felt it

was essential to take action.” The letter announced

that the protestors who had remained past the 12:15

p.m. deadline would be “suspended from non-academic

campus activities” as an interim action, and that the

disciplinary cases would be referred to the Ad Hoc

Complaint Response Team for “final adjudication.”

MIT did not publicize whether any “actual disciplinary

measures . . . were taken” against the student

protestors. The head of the MIT Department of Urban

Studies and Planning sent an email to students in the

department indicating that he would protect students

involved in the protest.

Sometime before February 26, 2024, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid held a protest outside of MIT’s

Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response

MIT Hillel is an organization that “serves as a hub for Jewish

life on campus.” About Us, MIT Hillel, https://hillel.mit.edu/

aboutus [https://perma.cc/XW8Z-39H7] (last visited Oct. 2, 2025).

(IDHR) office. After that protest, IDHR issued orders

forbidding contact between the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid members and IDHR staff. In mid-February,

the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid held another

protest in Lobby 7, in which students “unfurled large

flags” and “chanted ‘From the River to the Sea,

Palestine will be free!’” The next day, MIT suspended

the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid as a student

group.

The campus turmoil extended beyond protest alone.

On November 14, 2023, MIT announced a new

“Standing Together Against Hate” initiative to combat

antisemitism on campus. Sometime later, however,

Jewish and Israeli faculty members resigned from the

committee because they did not think it was doing

enough to address antisemitism on campus. In the

November/December 2023 issue of the Faculty Newsletter, MIT professor Michel DeGraff published an

opinion expressing support for pro-Palestinian student

protestors, denouncing “ongoing bombing (that is, war

crimes) against hospitals in Gaza” and “genocide” of

Palestinians by the Israeli army, and arguing that

“racism” might be fueling the MIT administration’s

alleged decision to denounce antisemitism but not

islamophobia with regard to the campus protests; the

letter closed with the slogan “from the river to the sea,

from Gaza to MIT.”

In December 2023, the MIT Women’s and Gender

Studies Department and the MIT Coalition for

Palestine co-hosted an event and invited students to

join a book club discussing a book by Ahed Tamimi, a

Palestinian activist who on one occasion allegedly

posted online, “Come on settlers, we will slaughter

you. . . . What Hitler did to you was a joke.”

On December 6, 2023, Israeli-American author Miko

Peled gave a talk organized by the MIT Coalition

Against Apartheid and MIT Coalition for Palestine,

in which Peled “encouraged his audience to go to MIT

Hillel and confront MIT’s Jewish students there about

Gaza”; Peled joked about not being able to say “From

the river to the sea,” and students in the audience

began chanting the phrase.

On December 13, 2023, lecturer Mauricio Karchmer

publicly resigned from MIT, stating that he could no

longer “teach those who condemn [his] Jewish identity

or [his] support for Israel’s right to exist in peace with

its neighbors.” The following month, a non-Jewish

student emailed MIT to complain about an interfaith

event in which MIT’s Interfaith Chaplain and Spiritual

Advisor to the Indigenous Community stated that

Palestinians were being “wrongly subjugated and

oppressed by white European colonizers.” A few days

later, MIT Israel Alliance, “of which at least one

[p]laintiff is a member,” emailed MIT’s administration

to complain about MIT’s failure to deter “discriminatory and harassing behavior toward Jewish and Israeli

students,” informing the university that some Jewish

students had “relocated or chosen to stay in Israel” as

a result.

On March 7, 2024, plaintiffs filed their initial

complaint in the District of Massachusetts, alleging

antisemitic and anti-Israeli discrimination in violation

of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That same

month, pro-Palestinian student activists began a

new campaign in which they emailed faculty whose

research related to Israel and accused them of being

“complicit in . . . [Israel’s] crimes against humanity.”

The activists asked these faculty to “immediately

cease these [Israel-related] projects and reject all

future contracts” with the Israeli military and similar

entities, and they contacted students of the targeted

faculty asking them to “reflect” on their professors’

receipt of Israeli funding. Two student groups, the

MIT Coalition Against Apartheid and Graduates for

Palestine, made posts on Instagram that “shamed

by name” faculty whose research was funded by the

Israeli government and noted that the information

came from an “internal [MIT] grant management tool”

that, per plaintiffs, is meant only for MIT faculty and

staff use.

Additionally, according to plaintiffs, “[t]hroughout

the spring” MIT allowed what plaintiffs call

“antisemitic posters” to “be displayed on campus.”

As an example, plaintiffs point to a poster that

“remain[ed] hanging for approximately one month”

depicting two fists in handcuffs and proclaiming,

“No to Zionism and Racism.”

Matters came to a head on April 21, 2024, when proPalestinian protestors erected an encampment on

Kresge Lawn, toward the center of MIT’s campus and

adjacent to Hillel. The encampment included approximately 30 students5 and 15 tents. Protestors displayed

signs stating, “Zionism is apartheid, it’s a genocide,

it’s murder, it’s a racist ideology rooted in settler

expansion and racial domination and we must root it

out of the world. Zionism is a death cult,” and “Boys in

Blue, KKK, IOF[,] They are all the SAME.”

Through social media, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid further called for action from others,

stating: “We stand in solidarity with our steadfast

MIT reports having over 11,000 students as of October 2024.

Enrollment Statistics, MIT, https://facts.mit.edu/enrollment-stati

stics [https://perma.cc/6D55-7MSD] (last visited Aug. 7, 2025).

10a

siblings in Palestine. We rebuke the complicity of our

institution, and today, we take the next step together

in fighting for what we believe in. Everyone, come

support the encampment on Kresge Lawn.” They

posted further calls to “vote yes” on a referendum

calling for a “permanent ceasefire” and the cutting of

ties “between MIT and the Israeli military.” In another

social media post, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid stated, “We will continue to be loud and be

heard and not be deterred away from our fight for

Palestine and our fight against MIT’s complicity with

the occupation.”

Disturbed by the student encampment and protests,

some Jewish students at MIT moved their Passover

seder from Hillel to “an off-campus location” and asked

MIT to permit them to attend class remotely. An

unnamed graduate student emailed President Kornbluth,

MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles, and other university

administrators demanding that they “assure” Jewish

and Israeli students that MIT would not “‘both sides’

the encampment” and accusing the protestors of

“ma[king] campus such a hostile environment that it

is nearly impossible for [Jewish and Israeli students]

to work, study, or keep up with [their] research

commitments.” Nobles replied by email that MIT

“underst[oo]d” the student’s concern and was “working

to move in a constructive dialogue with those who are

protesting,” and she asked the student for “patience

and understanding as [MIT did] this hard work.” She

further “urge[d the student and the student’s peers]

not to counterprotest.”

The encampment remained in place from April 21,

2024, to May 10, 2024. One week in, Kornbluth

released a video and statement about the protests and

11a

MIT’s response. Kornbluth explained that while the

encampment was “a clear violation of [MIT’s] procedures for registering and reserving space for campus

demonstrations,” the situation had “so far been

peaceful.” She noted that the students who had broken

MIT’s rules would “face disciplinary action,” described

an agreement reached with protestors “not to make

noise after 7:30 pm,” and stated that to “avoid any

further escalation,” she had directed campus police

to monitor the encampment “24 hours a day.” She

rejected calls to “compromise the academic freedom of

our faculty” whose research involved Israel or who

received Israeli funding. Finally, she stated that while

she “believe[d] the protestors’ chants were] protected

speech, under [MIT’s] principles of free expression,”

the encampment “need[ed] to end soon.”

Nonetheless, the encampment continued, and on

May 3, 2024, MIT installed high fencing around the

encampment to contain it. The following day, journalists recorded protestors at the encampment chanting

slogans in Arabic, which – according to plaintiffs –

could be translated as “From water to water, Palestine

is Arab!”; “Palestine is free, Israel out”; “We want to

talk about the obvious, we don’t want to see Zionists”;

Plaintiffs excerpt portions of Kornbluth’s remarks in their

complaint, and the complaint includes a hyperlink to the

statement in its entirety. See Video transcript: MIT Community

Message from President Kornbluth, MIT Office of the President,

https://president.mit.edu/writing-speeches/video-transcript-mitcommunity-message-president-kornbluth [https://perma.cc/E25Q DX9E] (last visited Oct. 16, 2025). We therefore treat the full

statement as incorporated in the complaint by reference. See

Watterson, 987 F.2d at 3. We treat other statements contained in

documents relied upon and linked to by the complaint similarly.

12a

“The iron gates of Al Aqsa, open for the martyr!”; and

“From water to water, death to Zionism!”7

By May 6, 2024, the encampment still had not

ended, and MIT attempted to draw a harder line: It

informed protestors that if they did not depart by 2:30

p.m., they would face discipline. But this strategy

appears to have backfired. The protest organizers

posted on social media calling for others to join the

encampment. As tensions mounted, an individual

jumped over the fence surrounding the encampment,

sparking a “surge” in which a new wave of protestors

breached the fence. By the evening of May 6,

approximately 150 protestors had gathered at the

encampment.

The next day – May 7 – Hillel had planned to use

Kresge Lawn to celebrate the state of Israel. But

because the lawn was occupied by the protest

encampment, Hillel moved the event. On May 8,

protest activities intensified. Protestors blocked the

entrance and exit to Stata Center garage, a campus

building a short distance from Kresge Lawn, and

defaced and discarded Israeli and American flags.

Protestors repeated the tactic the following day, again

blocking the entrance to the garage and preventing

MIT “community members” from entering and exiting,

as well as shutting down nearby Vassar Street. This

time, nine students were arrested.

On May 10, 2024, MIT successfully cleared the

encampment, and the ten students who remained

were arrested. MIT issued a statement indicating

that “freedom of expression . . . does not protect the

Plaintiffs do not allege that they or others informed MIT of

the English translations of these chants, nor that MIT was

otherwise on notice of their meaning.

13a

continued use of a shared Institute resource in

violation of long-established rules” and providing a

timeline of events justifying the decision to clear the

encampment and arrest the remaining student

protestors.

On May 17, 2024, plaintiffs filed their amended

complaint, which included new causes of action under

the Ku Klux Klan Act and state common law. MIT

moved to dismiss the suit, and the district court

granted the motion. This appeal followed.

II.

We review de novo a district court’s decision to

dismiss a lawsuit for failure to state a claim. Douglas,

63 F.4th at 54–55. Our task is to determine whether

plaintiffs’ complaint “contain[s] sufficient factual

matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that

is plausible on its face.’” Id. at 55 (quoting Ashcroft v.

Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). A plausible claim, in

turn, is one in which plaintiffs “plead[] factual content

that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference

that the defendant is liable for the misconduct

alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. In assessing whether

plaintiffs have stated a facially plausible claim to

relief, we accept as true the complaint’s well-pleaded

factual allegations and draw all reasonable factual

inferences in plaintiffs’ favor. McKee v. Cosby, 874 F.3d

54, 58 (1st Cir. 2017). However, we do not credit

“conclusory legal allegations,” nor “factual allegations

that are ‘too meager, vague, or conclusory to remove

the possibility of relief from the realm of mere

conjecture.’” Douglas, 63 F.4th at 55 (quoting Legal Sea

Foods, LLC v. Strathmore Ins. Co., 36 F.4th 29, 33

(1st Cir. 2022)).

14a

With this framework in place, we advance to the

merits of plaintiffs’ arguments: Did the district court

err by dismissing their claims under Title VI, the

Ku Klux Klan Act, and Massachusetts common law?

We consider each claim in turn.

III.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act mandates that “[n]o

person in the United States shall, on the ground

of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from

participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be

subjected to discrimination under any program or

activity receiving [f]ederal financial assistance.”

42 U.S.C. § 2000d.8 To hold MIT liable for violating this

mandate, plaintiffs pursue a hostile environment, or

“harassment,” theory analogous to a theory of liability

developed under Title IX. See Porto v. Town of

Tewksbury, 488 F.3d 67, 72–73 (1st Cir. 2007) (citing

Davis ex rel. Lashonda D. v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ.,

526 U.S. 629, 650 (1999)). Under this theory, a school

can be held liable if it was “deliberately indifferent” to

“severe, pervasive and objectively offensive” harassment that “caused the [plaintiff] to be deprived of

educational opportunities or benefits.” D.L. ex rel. M.L.

v. Concord Sch. Dist., 86 F.4th 501, 511 (1st Cir. 2023)

(citations omitted). Though these cases involved a

sexual harassment claim under Title IX, the standards

for sexual harassment under Title IX and racial

harassment under Title VI are often treated as

harmonious. See Adams v. Demopolis City Sch.,

80 F.4th 1259, 1273 (11th Cir. 2023) (collecting cases

applying Title IX’s deliberate indifference standard to

claims of student-on-student racial harassment under

The parties do not dispute that MIT is subject to Title VI as a

“program . . . receiving [f]ederal financial assistance.”

15a

Title VI); see also Fitzgerald v. Barnstable Sch. Comm.,

555 U.S. 246, 258 (2009) (noting, in a case alleging a

violation of Title IX, that “Congress modeled Title IX

after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”);

Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 787 n.1

(1998) (explaining, in the context of a Title VII sexual

harassment claim, that “[a]lthough racial and sexual

harassment will often take different forms, and

standards may not be entirely interchangeable, we

think there is good sense in seeking generally to

harmonize the standards of what amounts to actionable harassment”). No party suggests that we should

proceed otherwise in evaluating plaintiffs’ complaint.

As we will explain, plaintiffs’ proposed use of this

theory fails for two independent reasons. First,

Plaintiffs’ allegations do not plausibly rise to the level

of actionable harassment required by Title VI. Second,

even if the protestors’ conduct as a whole was

actionable harassment under Title VI, MIT is not

liable because it was not deliberately indifferent to the

effects of the protests on Jewish and Israeli students.

Our reasoning follows.

Our conclusion that plaintiffs have failed to allege

actionable racial harassment consists of three parts.

To begin, most of the conduct about which plaintiffs

complain is speech protected by the First Amendment,

and we do not construe Title VI as requiring a

university to quash protected speech. Furthermore, by

gathering together in groups on campus, disrupting

campus tranquility, and impeding travel for many

students, the protestors did not render their speech

antisemitic, much less unprotected. Finally, to the

extent that plaintiffs allege isolated incidents that are

plausibly antisemitic, the complaint’s allegations are

16a

not sufficiently severe, pervasive, and offensive to

constitute actionable harassment under Title VI. We

address each part in turn.

Because plaintiffs base their claim so heavily on

what the protestors said and wrote, we consider first

whether plaintiffs’ proposed application of a harassment claim under Title VI comports with First

Amendment principles.

The Supreme Court has long recognized “a profound

national commitment to the principle that debate on

public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wideopen.” N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270

(1964). By removing “governmental restraints from

the arena of public discussion,” the First Amendment

places “the decision as to what views shall be voiced

largely into the hands of each of us, . . . in the belief

that no other approach would comport with the

premise of individual dignity and choice upon which

our political system rests.” McCutcheon v. Fed. Election

Comm’n, 572 U.S. 185, 203 (2014) (alteration in

original) (quotation marks omitted) (quoting Cohen v.

California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971)).

In light of this overriding interest in open debate,

speech made in public that is related to matters of

public concern has been given “special protection

under the First Amendment” and thus “cannot be

restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses

contempt.” Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 458 (2011)

(internal quotations omitted) (protecting speech of

Westboro Baptist Church protestors chanting “God

Hates You,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and

“Priests Rape Boys” at a funeral for a deceased

soldier); see also Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 322 (1988)

17a

(reasoning that “in public debate . . . citizens must

tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in

order to provide adequate ‘breathing space’ to the

freedoms protected by the First Amendment” (quotation

marks omitted) (quoting Hustler Mag., Inc. v. Falwell,

485 U.S. 46, 56 (1988))); Street v. New York, 394 U.S.

576, 592 (1969) (reaffirming that “the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the

ideas are themselves offensive to some of their

hearers”); Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll.

Dist., 605 F.3d 703, 706–708 (9th Cir. 2010) (finding a

community college was not required to restrict a

professor’s emails related to immigration, race, and

the “preservation of [a] White majority” because “[t]he

Constitution embraces . . . a heated exchange of views,

even (perhaps especially) when they concern sensitive

topics like race”).

Similarly, the Supreme Court has long upheld “[t]he

essentiality of freedom in the community of American

universities,” warning that “[t]o impose any strait

jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and

universities would imperil the future of our Nation.”

Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 250 (1957)

(plurality opinion). A university’s “[a]cademic freedom,

though not a specifically enumerated constitutional

right, long has been viewed as a special concern of the

First Amendment.” Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke,

438 U.S. 265, 312 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.); see also

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President &

Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 217 (2023)

(recognizing a “tradition of giving a degree of deference

to a university’s academic decisions . . . within constitutionally prescribed limits” (quotation marks omitted)

(quoting Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 328 (2003))).

And “private schools,” in particular, “have a First

Amendment right to academic freedom.” Asociación de

18a

Educación Privada de P.R., Inc. v. García-Padilla, 490

F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2007).9

Here, the student protestors engaged in speech on a

matter of public concern10 – the conflict in Gaza – while

on the campus of a private university in which they

were enrolled. MIT chose to restrict that speech in part

and allow it to continue in part. Now, plaintiffs seek to

hold MIT liable, under a federal statute, for its failure

to curtail that speech even further.

As a private institution, MIT could choose to curtail

political speech by its students without First Amendment scrutiny. See, e.g., United Bhd. of Carpenters,

Local 610 v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 831–33 (1983)

(explaining that the First Amendment protects

against state interference, not purely private conduct).

But MIT’s authority to decide for itself whether to

prohibit certain political speech is not the issue here.

Rather, the question is whether Title VI required MIT

to try to put an end to the protestors’ speech. And

requiring MIT to restrict students’ expression merely

because those students opposed Israel and favored the

García-Padilla focused on private primary and secondary

schools. However, given our reasoning in that case, its pertinent

conclusion applies with at least equal force to universities.

See García-Padilla, 490 F.3d at 8–9 (finding that the Supreme

Court has “invoked academic freedom to protect universities, as

academic institutions, against government control”).

“Speech deals with matters of public concern when it can ‘be

fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or

other concern to the community.’” Snyder, 562 U.S. at 453 (quoting

Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 146 (1983)). Speech also qualifies

as a matter of public concern “when it ‘is a subject of legitimate

news interest; that is, a subject of general interest and of value

and concern to the public.’” Id. (quoting City of San Diego v. Roe,

543 U.S. 77, 83–84 (2004)). The student protestors’ expression on

a highly publicized conflict in the Middle East meets this standard.

19a

Palestinian cause would infringe upon MIT’s freedom

to encourage, rather than suppress, a vigorous

exchange of ideas. See Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors

of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 836 (1995) (“For the

University . . . to cast disapproval on particular

viewpoints of its students risks the suppression of free

speech and creative inquiry in one of the vital centers

for the Nation’s intellectual life, its college and

university campuses.”).

Using Title VI to compel adherence to a preferred

political viewpoint would also implicate students’

First Amendment freedoms. A law punishing private

citizens for expressing political opinions disfavored by

Congress would be subject to “the most exacting” First

Amendment scrutiny. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397,

412 (1989); see also Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536,

545–51 (1965) (holding that a state violated the

First Amendment when it prosecuted and convicted

a student protestor for “disturbing the peace” based

merely on “hostility” to the views the protestor

expressed). “When the government targets not subject

matter, but particular views taken by speakers on a

subject, the violation of the First Amendment is all the

more blatant.” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829 (citing

R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 391 (1992)). As such,

“[t]he government must abstain from regulating

speech when the specific motivating ideology or the

opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale

for the restriction.” Id. (citing Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry

Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 46 (1983)).

Viewpoint restrictions are all the more perturbing in

the context of speech the government deems offensive.

Cf. Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218, 223 (2017) (finding

trademark restriction prohibiting an Asian American

rock band from registering their band under a

derogatory racial term “offend[ed] a bedrock First

20a

Amendment principle” that “speech may not be

banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that

offend”). Nor can the reactions of an offended audience

serve as grounds for the government to suppress such

speech. See id. at 250 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part

and concurring in the judgment) (“[A] speech burden

based on audience reactions is simply government

hostility and intervention in a different guise.”). It

makes no difference that, in this case, restriction of

speech comes by way of a civil suit brought by private

parties. Congress cannot skirt First Amendment

concerns by passing a law requiring someone else to

punish protected speech. See Nat’l Rifle Ass’n of Am. v.

Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 187, 190 (2024) (explaining that

“viewpoint discrimination is uniquely harmful to a

free and democratic society” and holding that “[a]

government official cannot coerce a private party to

punish or suppress disfavored speech on her behalf ”).

Likewise, the government cannot empower a private

party to punish speech on a matter of public concern

absent unusual circumstances not present here. See

Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 283 (limiting “a [s]tate’s power to

award damages for libel in actions brought by public

officials against critics of their official conduct”); Phila.

Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 775 (1986)

(explaining that the protections of Sullivan extend –

albeit to a lesser extent – to speech on issues of “public

concern,” even where the plaintiff is not a public

official or public figure). The government may not

permit juries to “punish” private speech merely

because it expresses an “unpopular opinion,” either.

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 348–49 (1974)

(limiting the remedies available to private defamation

plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds); see also

Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 277 (“What a [s]tate may not

constitutionally bring about by means of a criminal

21a

statute is likewise beyond the reach of its civil law of

libel.”).

Nor has MIT forfeited its right to make or allow

speech disfavored by the government by receiving

federal funds for programs or activities unrelated to

the speech at issue here. See Agency for Int’l Dev. v. All.

for Open Soc’y Int’l, Inc., 570 U.S. 205, 218 (2013)

(finding that the First Amendment prohibited a

statutory provision that “demand[ed] that [federal]

funding recipients adopt – as their own – the

Government’s view on an issue of public concern,” and

thus “by its very nature affect[ed] ‘protected conduct

outside the scope of the federally funded program’”

(quoting Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 197 (1991))).

In sum, the First Amendment erects safeguards that

limit the ability of the government or private plaintiffs

to punish MIT for not restricting more severely the

student protestors’ protected speech.

In view of that anodyne conclusion, we find no

surprise in plaintiffs’ agreement that “courts should

interpret Title VI to comport with First Amendment

principles.” In keeping with that agreement, plaintiffs

do not expressly argue that Title VI can be used to

punish a school for not stifling student speech that the

government itself could not punish. Instead, plaintiffs

argue that much of the protestors’ speech fell outside

the protection of the First Amendment – and thus

within the reach of a government censor – because the

speech was racist (i.e., antisemitic).

This argument poses two nettlesome issues. First,

under what circumstances, if any, can racist speech be

punished pursuant to Title VI without violating the

22a

First Amendment? See Davis, 526 U.S. at 667–68

(Kennedy, J., dissenting) (reviewing the “difficult [First

Amendment] problems raised by university speech

codes designed to deal with peer . . . harassment”);

Rodriguez, 605 F.3d at 708 (“There is no categorical

‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free

speech clause.” (quoting Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch.

Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 204 (3d Cir. 2001))); see also Todd

E. Pettys, Hostile Learning Environments, the First

Amendment and Public Higher Education, 54 Conn. L.

Rev. 1, 37–55 (2022) (analyzing hypothetical scenarios

under which a university may or may not be able to

constitutionally restrict speech for creating a hostile

learning environment). Second, even assuming that

some racist speech can constitutionally be punished

pursuant to Title VI, have plaintiffs adequately alleged

that the protestors’ expression was racist (i.e., antisemitic)?12 Because we can decide this appeal without

Amicus curiae National Jewish Advocacy Center (but not

plaintiffs) also suggests that calls for “intifada” or chants of “from

the river to the sea” were “true threats” unprotected by the First

Amendment. True threats are “statements where the speaker

means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to

commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or

group of individuals.” Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003)

(plurality opinion). Plaintiffs themselves make no such argument,

never claiming that any alleged expression of intent to commit

unlawful violence can plausibly be inferred from the complaint’s

description of the roughly seven months of peaceful protest.

For purposes of reviewing plaintiffs’ complaint, we assume

that antisemitic harassment constitutes actionable racial harassment under Title VI. Cf. Sinai v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co.,

3 F.3d 471, 474 (1st Cir. 1993) (noting in construing 42 U.S.C.

§ 1982 that the “Jewish/Hebrew” identity has been “defined as a

protected race by the Supreme Court”) (first citing Saint Francis

Coll. v. Al–Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987); and then citing Shaare

Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615 (1987)).

23a

addressing the first issue, we proceed directly to the

second.

To suggest that the protestors as a group were guilty

of antisemitism, plaintiffs point to two categories of

expression by protestors: the chants, emails, and signs

that formed the general thrust of the protestors’

message; and the gatherings that impeded movement

on MIT’s campus. We consider each category,

beginning with the verbal and written messages that

focused and spread the protestors’ views.

The sordid history of antisemitism provides a litany

of epithets and tropes widely understood as expressions of religious or racial animus. As described by

plaintiffs, the scores of protestors holding handmade

signs and voicing various chants eschewed those

epithets and tropes, directing their ire instead at the

Israeli state and its treatment of Palestinians.

To support their claim of antisemitism, plaintiffs

point to the protestors’ opposition to Zionism, which

they argue is inherently antisemitic. “Zionism,”

plaintiffs explain, “is the belief that Jews have

the right to self-determination in their ancestral

homeland of Israel.” Plaintiffs argue that because

“most Jews” see Zionism as “a key component of their

Jewish ethnic and ancestral identity,” “‘anti-Zionism’

is . . . antisemitism.” In plaintiffs’ view, speech is antiZionist, and therefore antisemitic, if it “oppose[s]

Jewish self-determination in the State of Israel”; if it

“claim[s] that the existence of a State of Israel is a

racist endeavor”; if it “requir[es] of [Israel] a behavior

not expected or demanded of any other democratic

nation”; and if it “draw[s] comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Under this

24a

framework, plaintiffs also treat as antisemitic any

criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, any suggestion

that violence by Palestinians can be understood as

resistance to colonial rule and Israeli expansion, and

any implication that Palestinians should govern – or

even simply be “free” – in all of Palestine (i.e., “from

the river to the sea”).

Plaintiffs are entitled to their own interpretive

lens equating anti-Zionism (as they define it) and

antisemitism. But it is another matter altogether to

insist that others must be bound by plaintiffs’ view.

Plaintiffs’ equation finds no consensus support in

dictionary definitions.13 Nor does a review of the

academic literature point to any consensus that

criticism of Zionism is antisemitic.14 And we do not find

Compare Anti-Semitism, Merriam-Webster, https://www.mer

riam-webster.com/dictionary/antisemitism [https://perma.cc/Q32

E-YSN7] (last visited Oct. 14, 2025) (defining antisemitism as

“hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious,

ethnic, or racial group”), with Anti-Zionism, Merriam-Webster,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-Zionism [https://

perma.cc/KF59-N2VC] (last visited Oct. 14, 2025) (defining antiZionism as “opposition to the establishment or support of the

state of Israel: opposition to Zionism”), and Zionism, MerriamWebster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Zionism

[https://perma.cc/9BQQ-RTWD] (last visited Oct. 14, 2025)

(defining Zionism as “an international movement originally for

the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in

Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel”).

See, e.g., Itamar Mann & Lihi Yona, Defending Jews from the

Definition of Antisemitism, 71 UCLA L. Rev. 1150, 1150, 1155

(2024) (arguing that the conflation of “sharp criticism of Israel”

with antisemitism produces “a narrowing of Jewish identity

and a delegitimization of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish

communities”); Frederick P. Schaffer, Title VI, Anti-Semitism, and

the Problem of Compliance, 46 J. Coll. & U.L. 71, 77 (2021)

(observing that “arguments about Zionism and Israel are political

arguments that are not logically connected to anti-Semitism,” but

25a

it dispositive that the United States Department of

State has defined antisemitism as “[d]enying the

Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by

claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a

racist endeavor.” Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor

and Combat Antisemitism, Defining Antisemitism,

U.S. Dep’t of State https://www.state.gov/defining-anti

semitism [https://perma.cc/2KZF-TRBY] (last visited

Sept. 29, 2025). As the Supreme Court has repeatedly

emphasized, “new categories of unprotected speech

may not be added to the list by a legislature that

concludes certain speech is too harmful to be

tolerated.” Brown v. Ent. Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786,

791 (2011) (citing United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S.

460, 469–472 (2010)).

This absence of consensus reflects ongoing debate as

to the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism – debate that our constitutional scheme

resolves through discourse, not judicial fiat. Indeed,

the debate on occasion has been formal and high

“criticism of Israeli policy . . . can be expressed in ways that

indicate an underlying anti-Jewish animus or that help create

an environment conducive to anti-Semitism”); Note, Wielding

Antidiscrimination Law to Suppress the Movement for

Palestinian Rights, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1360, 1373, 1376 (2020)

(arguing that “Zionism does not reflect the views of all Jewish

people” and “equating anti-Zionism (a political ideology that

opposes Jewish ethno-nationalism) with anti-Semitism (antiJewish animus) requires a logical leap that defeats finding direct

evidence of religious discrimination”); Derek Penslar, Who’s

Afraid of Defining Antisemitism?, 6 Antisemitism Stud. 133, 136

(2022) (contending that “[a]lternatives to sovereign Jewish

statehood . . . are not antisemitic,” and observing that even if

antisemitism is defined to permit “criticism of Israel similar to

that leveled against any other country,” “separatists have long

called for . . . dissolution” of countries like Canada and Spain, and

some people have labeled the United States “structurally racist”).

26a

profile. See, e.g., Munk Debate on Anti-Zionism, Munk

Debates (June 17, 2024), https://munkdebates.com/deb

ates/munk-debate-on-anti-zionism [https://perma.cc/9

MQ6-Y2EK] (debating the proposition that “antiZionism is antisemitism”); Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism,

Intelligence Squared (June 20, 2019), https://www.inte

lligencesquared.com/events/anti-zionism-is-anti-semitism

[https://perma.cc/28M6-7XGS] (same). We decline to

interpret Title VI as arming either side of that debate

with the powers of a censor.

MIT also had to contend with the inverse of

plaintiffs’ contention: that Muslim and Palestinian

students could, by similar logic, claim that expressing

support for Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza

was Islamophobic or anti-Arab. Indeed, plaintiffs’

complaint cites a faculty note arguing that MIT’s

response to the campus conflict manifested racism

against Arab and Muslim students. We struggle to

imagine how a university faced with such conflicting

views could plausibly eliminate all unwelcome speech

without quashing all speech concerning the conflict

between Israelis and Palestinians, particularly

because – as MIT’s president Kornbluth observed in a

statement cited by plaintiffs – MIT’s community

included both “people who lost friends and family to

the brutal terror attack of October 7, and people with

friends and family currently in mortal danger in

Rafah.” Cf. Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 831 (“[E]xclusion

of several views on [a] problem is just as offensive to

the First Amendment as exclusion of only one.”).

This is not to say that anti-Zionism is never wielded

as a tool of the antisemite. See Gartenberg v. Cooper

Union for the Advancement of Sci. & Art, 765 F. Supp.

3d 245, 269 (S.D.N.Y. 2025) (finding that “From the

river to the sea, Palestine will be free” graffiti on a

27a

bathroom stall that was “made to resemble the stylized

font commonly associated with Hitler’s Mein Kampf”

could be used, among other evidence, to show

antisemitic motivation). It is to say, instead, that one

person does not lose the right to express a political

opinion on a matter of public concern merely because

another who expresses the same view does so for

condemnable reasons. One individual might criticize

a government program as an inefficient use of taxpayer resources; another might criticize the program

because of hostility toward its beneficiaries on the

basis of their race or religion. The latter individual’s

view, while reprehensible, could not justify restricting

the former individual’s speech, nor imposing a categorical ban on criticism of the program. See NAACP v.

Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 915–20 (1982)

(holding that civil rights protestors did not forfeit their

First Amendment rights merely because certain group

members’ conduct exceeded the scope of constitutional

protections); cf. Black, 538 U.S. at 365 (“The act of

burning a cross may mean that a person is engaging

in constitutionally proscribable intimidation. But that

same act may mean only that the person is engaged

in core political speech.”). Nor can the possibility

that antisemitism motivates one speaker’s anti-Israel

speech justify assuming that all criticism of Israel or

advocacy for Palestinian sovereignty is motivated by

antisemitism. We therefore reject plaintiffs’ claimed

right to stifle anti-Zionist speech by labeling it

inherently antisemitic.

Nor do plaintiffs allege facts that, if true, would

otherwise permit the inference that in these specific

circumstances the protestors’ strident criticisms of

Israel were driven by antisemitism. Without such an

inference, the protestors’ speech cannot constitute

racial harassment for Title VI purposes. See Goodman

28a

v. Bowdoin Coll., 380 F.3d 33, 43 (1st Cir. 2004)

(observing that “racial animus” is “a necessary component of . . . claims under” Title VI); Doe v. Brown

Univ., 43 F.4th 195, 208 (1st Cir. 2022) (“To succeed on

his race-based claims, [plaintiff] must show, among

other things, that [defendant] acted with discriminatory intent.”). Here, plaintiffs proffer only conclusory

allegations of antisemitic animus that are “not entitled

to be assumed true.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680–81

(rejecting as conclusory the allegation that officials

“adopted a policy ‘“because of,” not merely “in spite of,”

its adverse effects upon an identifiable group’” (quoting Pers. Admin’r of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 279

(1979))). Plaintiffs allege no facts plausibly establishing that the protestors, as a group, opposed Israeli

actions in Gaza or supported the Palestinian cause

because of antisemitic animus. Nor do plaintiffs allege

facts plausibly showing that the protestors as a group

shared plaintiffs’ view that anti-Zionism was inherently antisemitic.

We also reject plaintiffs’ implicit contention that the

choice to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza – rather

than, for example, choosing to criticize some other

alleged atrocity elsewhere in the world – necessarily

manifests antisemitism. Political advocacy, by its

nature, involves a choice to focus on certain issues or

causes over others. Title VI does not preclude the

protestors, U.S. university students, from responding

to the headlines by choosing Israel as their target,

particularly given the protestors’ perception of the

significant role played by the United States and U.S.supplied arms in the conflict between Israelis and

Palestinians. Cf. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch.

Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 514 (1969) (upholding students’

rights to “exhibit their disapproval of the Vietnam

hostilities and their advocacy of a truce, to make their

29a

views known, and . . . to influence others to adopt

them”).

Finally, plaintiffs point to the fraught subject of

genocide. First, plaintiffs claim that accusing Israel

of committing genocide against Palestinians is antisemitic. But even prominent Israelis have lodged the

same accusation. See, e.g., Omer Bartov, Opinion,

I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It., N.Y.

Times (July 15, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/20

25/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-pales

tinians.html [https://perma.cc/P9GM-3RRX]. Second,

plaintiffs claim in their brief that some protestors

called for the genocide of the Jewish people. But there

are no factual allegations supporting this claim.

Rather, plaintiffs say that we should construe chants

of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and

“intifada revolution” as calls to wipe out the Jewish

people as such. But neither slogan says as much on its

face, nor do plaintiffs allege facts suggesting that

either chant was commonly so construed by the

protestors. So plaintiffs must again rely on a theory

that they can dictate the interpretation of the

protestors’ speech in order to suppress it, without any

facts suggesting that the protestors were using these

slogans in the way plaintiffs claim.

In reviewing these claims, our role is not to approve

or disapprove of the protestors’ strident advocacy, nor

of the ideas they so vigorously expressed. We do not

question the anguish plaintiffs felt at hearing a few of

their peers justify the October 7 massacre or deny

Israel the right to defend itself. But our Constitution

bars the government from forcing a private university

to prohibit students from voicing vehement support

for, or opposition to, the policies and conduct of the

United States and its allies. For these reasons, we

30a

decline plaintiffs’ invitation to hold that the protestors’

speech constituted antisemitic harassment actionable

under Title VI merely because it was stridently proPalestinian and anti-Zionist.

Trying a different approach to support their claim

that the protests constituted antisemitic harassment,

plaintiffs also point to the protestors’ disruptive

physical presence. This presence first impeded travel

across and within MIT’s campus during seven days of

protest spread out over approximately five months,

and later included a three-week encampment by a

small group of students. For the most part, even as

alleged by plaintiffs, these impediments rendered

travel more difficult for all students and prevented all

students from using Kresge Lawn as they might

otherwise have planned – including, as plaintiffs

describe, for a planned celebration of the state of Israel.

Certainly, the protests may have interfered with

campus life and the university’s educational mission

in a way that could have disappointed many students

(and their parents). But our Title VI focus is not on

how the protests affected students generally. Rather,

we train our focus only on the extent to which the

protests might have harassed Jewish students as such.

See Davis, 526 U.S. at 651 (explaining that to plead

deliberate indifference, a plaintiff must plausibly

allege that she was “deprived . . . of an educational

opportunity on the basis of ” her protected characteristic). We recognize that because the encampment, in

particular, took place across from Hillel, its impact on

Jewish students was plausibly heightened. Indeed,

plaintiffs allege that they moved a scheduled Passover

seder “to an alternate location” because MIT had not

yet cleared the encampment and thus students did not

31a

feel comfortable attending the seder at Hillel. But

plaintiffs allege no facts to plausibly indicate that the

protestors chose Kresge Lawn for their encampment

because of its proximity to Hillel rather than for its

prominent location and preferred terrain for tents.

We are also unpersuaded by plaintiffs’ position that

the pro-Palestinian students surrendered some of

their First Amendment rights by gathering together,

chanting, and holding signs. “[B]y collective effort

individuals can make their views known, when,

individually, their voices would be faint or lost.”

Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley, 454

U.S. 290, 294 (1981). This practice is “deeply embedded

in the American political process.” Id.; see Boos, 485

U.S. at 318 (emphasizing that the display of signs

criticizing foreign governments are “at the core of the

First Amendment” and constitute “classically political

speech”); see also Claiborne Hardware, 458 U.S. at 910

(1982) (“Speech does not lose its protected character,

however, simply because it may embarrass others or

coerce them into action.”). For these reasons, we

conclude that plaintiffs have failed to plausibly allege

facts showing that the disruptive protests and campsite gatherings were antisemitic in message or purpose. Rather, they were time-worn methods of grabbing more attention for the broadcast of the protestors’

political views.

That being said, the cacophony of protests and

ensuing debates over the course of seven months, as

alleged, plausibly spun off several isolated incidents of

antisemitism. Plaintiffs allege that student protestors

specifically blocked Plaintiff Boukin from entering

Lobby 7 on one occasion while a protest was underway

“because she was Jewish,” while permitting other

32a

students and faculty to cross. They also allege Boukin

was denied access to the Kresge Lawn encampment

area on one occasion “because she was Jewish,” while

others were allowed to enter. One protestor on October

19, 2023, seemed to presume that Plaintiff Meyers

bore responsibility for the actions of the Israeli

government because her ancestors were Jewish.

MIT Coalition Against Apartheid members allegedly

“heckled” another individual “because he was visibly

Jewish.” Plaintiffs also allege that on December 6,

2023, an Israeli-American speaker urged listeners to

“go to MIT Hillel and confront MIT’s Jewish students

there about Gaza,”15 and that on one occasion a

graduate student authored a tweet equating Jews

with Nazis.16 So although we find no basis for insisting

that MIT view the thrust of the protests themselves or

even a large subset of the protestors as antisemitic, we

agree that plaintiffs allege a handful of incidents,

occurring over the course of seven months, that any

thoughtful person would regard as antisemitic – that

is, as confronting Jewish students “on the ground,”

42 U.S.C. § 2000d, that they were Jewish.17

In reviewing the link to a video of the speaker’s talk, which

plaintiffs supplied in their complaint and thereby incorporated by

reference, we were unable to identify this statement.

The allegation to which plaintiffs cite does not allege what

the student actually said, nor that plaintiffs themselves were

even aware of the tweet.

We do not, however, credit plaintiffs’ conclusory assertions

that other scattered speech and conduct manifested antisemitism: for example, a book group discussing a controversial

memoir, at which an MIT staff member “invited students to

sympathize” with a Palestinian author (an unremarkable

invitation for any curious reader), or an event at which an MIT

staff member expressed her view that Palestinians were being

“wrongly subjugated and oppressed by white European

33a

That these incidents were few in number and, even

then, not all trained on any plaintiff raises the

question of whether the antisemitic conduct that

plaintiffs plausibly allege was “severe, pervasive, and

objectively offensive.” Davis, 526 U.S. at 633. MIT

makes a convincing case that it was not. Indeed, it is

hard to see how plaintiffs’ allegations could plausibly

show that these antisemitic incidents were so

pervasive and disruptive as to “effectively bar the

victim[s’] access to an educational opportunity or

benefit.” Id. As the Supreme Court has emphasized in

the analogous Title IX context, “the [harassing]

behavior [must] be serious enough to have the systemic

effect of denying the victim equal access to an

educational program or activity.” Id. at 652 (emphasis

added). The requirement that the deprivation of

educational access be systemic is key: “Although, in

theory, a single instance of sufficiently severe one-onone peer harassment could be said to have such an

effect,” the Supreme Court has deemed it “unlikely

that Congress would have thought such behavior

sufficient to rise to this level.” Id. at 652–53.

Additionally, that the alleged incidents were

perpetrated by other students or by guest speakers

further undermines any inference of severe or

pervasive harassment. “The relationship between the

harasser and the victim necessarily affects the extent

to which the misconduct can be said to breach”

Title VI. Id. at 653. “Peer harassment, in particular, is

less likely to satisfy these requirements than is

teacher-student harassment.” Id. In light of these

considerations and without more instances of such

conduct, the alleged incidents fall short of the

colonizers” and asked attendees if they were Kosher in order to

give them a dessert that matched their dietary needs.

34a

“systemic” deprivation of educational opportunities

and benefits required by Davis.

In any event, plaintiffs fail to plausibly allege that

MIT had any knowledge of these isolated events.

Liability under Title VI requires that an “‘appropriate

person’ . . . with authority to take corrective action to

end the harassment” have “actual knowledge” of the

offending conduct. Grace v. Bd. of Trs., Brooke E. Bos.,

85 F.4th 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2023) (quoting Santiago v.

Puerto Rico, 655 F.3d 61, 74 (1st Cir. 2011)); see also

Davis, 526 U.S. at 650 (requiring that a recipient of

federal funding have “actual knowledge” of harassment to be held liable under Title IX). Although MIT

was clearly aware of the protests generally, plaintiffs

do not allege that they or others brought the specific,

identified incidents of antisemitism to the attention of

MIT officials who could take corrective action.

Given the foregoing findings, plaintiffs’ Title VI

claims fail even assuming that Title VI compels a

private university to take reasonable steps to shield its

students from racist speech per se. The disruptive

political protests sympathetic to Palestinian views of

the conflict with Israel were not, by and large,

antisemitic. And to the extent that the complaint

alleges any incidents that were plausibly antisemitic

and targeted at one or more plaintiffs, such incidents

were not sufficiently severe and pervasive to constitute

actionable harassment; furthermore, the complaint is

bereft of any allegation that appropriate MIT officials

were made aware of such incidents or who the

perpetrators were. For these reasons alone, we can

affirm the dismissal of plaintiffs’ Title VI claim.

35a

Although the foregoing analysis suffices to dispose

of plaintiffs’ Title VI claim, for the sake of completeness, we proceed to examine the alternative grounds

adopted by the district court – that even if the protests

are viewed as the type of harassment proscribed by

Title VI, MIT was not deliberately indifferent. For the

following reasons, we agree with the district court’s

reasoning.

This is not a case in which plaintiffs claim their

school took no action in response to reported

harassment. See Grace, 85 F.4th at 12–14 (finding a

triable issue as to deliberate indifference where a jury

could conclude that school officials took no remedial

measures for more than a year despite reports that

students repeatedly targeted their classmate with

homophobic epithets); Doe v. Pawtucket Sch. Dep’t, 969

F.3d 1, 7–8, 10, 11 (1st Cir. 2020) (vacating dismissal of

complaint where plaintiff could plausibly show that

the school took no action whatsoever upon learning

plaintiff had been raped by another student in a school

bathroom).

Rather, plaintiffs claim that MIT “dragged its feet,”

“took only minimal action,” and “fail[ed] to discipline”

student protestors so as to effectively deter their

conduct. But as our caselaw makes clear, Title VI does

not subject a private entity to damages liability merely

because its response did not deter or eradicate the

alleged peer harassment. See Fitzgerald v. Barnstable

Sch. Comm., 504 F.3d 165, 175 (1st Cir. 2007), rev’d on

other grounds, 555 U.S. 246 (2009) (“To avoid Title IX

liability, an educational institution must act reasonably to prevent future harassment; it need not succeed

in doing so.”); Davis, 526 U.S. at 648 (explaining that

schools need not “purg[e] their schools of actionable

36a

peer harassment” to avoid suit under Title IX).

A university is deliberately indifferent under Title VI

only if its response to known harassment is “so lax, so

misdirected, or so poorly executed as to be clearly

unreasonable under the known circumstances.”

D.L., 86 F.4th at 511 (quoting Fitzgerald, 504 F.3d at

175). As we will explain, MIT’s response to the political

divide among its students was far from “clearly

unreasonable.”

As the protest gatherings occurred over the course

of seven months, culminating in the Kresge Lawn

encampment, MIT took an escalating series of actions

aimed at calming the turmoil without violence.

Following the first student protests after the October

7 attack, MIT revised its campus expression rules and

policies and, on November 8, 2023, issued a letter

“announcing procedures for accelerated action on

reports of harassment and discrimination.” During the

rally in Lobby 7 on November 9, 2023, MIT met with

“leaders of the Jewish community.” It instructed

protestors to vacate the area by a set time or face

discipline. It then announced that it would suspend

from non-academic activities students who remained

after that deadline.

MIT then formed a Standing Together Against Hate

initiative to combat antisemitism on campus, hosting

an event about antisemitism on February 12, 2024.

When the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid protested

that event via an “emergency rally” that violated MIT

rules, MIT suspended the organization’s studentgroup privileges. And when the Kresge Lawn encampment was installed in late April 2024, MIT escalated

its suppressive efforts by prohibiting evening noise

and installing a 24-hour police presence. On April 27,

President Kornbluth called for a peaceful end to the

37a

encampment. When the student protestors continued

the encampment and outside community members

began to join, MIT placed high fencing around the

encampment to contain it. And, significantly, when

MIT first attempted to impose a deadline for the

encampment to cease, a flood of new arrivals, many

from outside MIT, knocked down and demolished the

safety fencing, further swelling the encampment. As

tensions rose, MIT suspended students following

unruly protests, and nine protestors were arrested for

blocking the Stata Center garage. Finally, MIT

managed to clear the encampment successfully on

May 10, 2024, and it had the remaining ten protestors

arrested.

Fair-minded persons might question whether MIT

acted quickly and decisively enough.18 Other fairminded persons might be sympathetic to a university’s

concern that it not counterproductively aggravate the

situation, as might have occurred on May 6 when

the university attempted to clear the encampment

and instead sparked a surge that overwhelmed the

barricade. We need to keep in mind, too, the nature of

the activity that plaintiffs say MIT should have

eliminated more quickly. Even if we accept plaintiffs’

position that some conduct of some protestors was

antisemitic, that would not provide a Title VI pretext

Plaintiffs also point to two letters received by MIT: one from

a member of Congress that plaintiffs describe as “urg[ing]”

President Kornbluth “to take more proactive measures to ensure

the safety and inclusion of Jewish students on MIT’s campus,”

and another from Department of Education “reminding schools of

their obligations under Title VI.” Although plaintiffs rely on these

letters to bolster their complaint, the issue is not whether MIT

was aware of its obligations – we assume that it was – but rather

whether MIT was deliberately indifferent to antisemitic harassment constituting a Title VI violation.

38a

for requiring MIT to eliminate the protests entirely. In

that respect, by managing the situation so as to avoid

escalation and violence, MIT was much more effective

than plaintiffs claim. All in all, the complaint simply

fails to allege facts plausibly supporting a claim of

deliberate indifference to antisemitic harassment.

Nor are we persuaded by plaintiffs’ theory that the

university’s response was “clearly unreasonable” because it “failed to take additional reasonable measures

after it learned that its initial remedies were ineffective,” Grace, 85 F.4th at 11 (quoting Porto, 488 F.3d at

73-74), or because its strategies “produced no results,”

Vance v. Spencer Cnty. Pub. Sch. Dist., 231 F.3d 253,

262 (6th Cir. 2000). To the contrary, any reasonable

school administrator in MIT’s position could have

reasonably surmised that its progressively evolving

responses prevented the on-campus conflict from

exploding into real violence between October 2023 and

May 2024. Based on plaintiffs’ allegations, we are

confident that, as the district court ably explained,

MIT’s handling of this challenging situation was

simply not indifferent.

As we have often repeated, Title VI does not require

schools to “craft perfect solutions,” D.L., 86 F.4th at 511

(quoting Fitzgerald, 504 F.3d at 174), nor does it entitle

students to their preferred “remedial demands,” Davis,

526 U.S. at 648. It simply requires that a school’s

response to known harassment not be “clearly

unreasonable.” Id. at 649. Plaintiffs do not allege facts

plausibly indicating that MIT’s course of action fell

below that standard. See D.L., 86 F.4th at 514

39a

(affirming that in assessing a school’s response to

alleged harassment, “perfection is not the test”).19

We therefore agree with the district court that even

were we to accept plaintiffs’ view of the protests as

manifesting a degree and form of antisemitism that

could be viewed as actionable harassment under Title

VI, MIT’s reaction was not clearly unreasonable. For

that reason – independent of our conclusion as to the

nature of the student protestors’ speech and conduct –

plaintiffs’ challenge to the dismissal of their Title VI

claim fails.

IV.

Plaintiffs next claim that MIT violated the Ku Klux

Klan Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1986, by knowingly failing to

prevent a conspiracy by the student protestors to

deprive Jewish and Israeli students of their civil

rights. To state a claim under § 1986, a plaintiff first

must plausibly plead a conspiracy under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1985(3). Gattineri v. Town of Lynnfield, 58 F.4th 512,

516 (1st Cir. 2023). And to state a claim under

§ 1985(3), a plaintiff must plausibly allege:

(1) a conspiracy, (2) a conspiratorial purpose

to deprive a class of persons, directly or

indirectly, of the equal protection of the laws

Nor does the unnamed MIT staff member’s incorrect suggestion that Jewish students were “not members of a protected class”

make MIT’s otherwise reasonable handling of the campus conflict

clearly unreasonable. In a different setting, the remark might

have implied indifference to complaints of antisemitism if made

by a senior official “with authority to take corrective action.”

Grace, 85 F.4th at 11. But here, as we have described, plaintiffs’

allegations make clear that senior university administrators

were not indifferent, and plaintiffs allege no facts suggesting that

those decisionmakers agreed with the unnamed staff member’s

statement.

40a

or of equal privileges and immunities under

the laws, (3) an overt act in furtherance of the

conspiracy, and (4) either (a) an injury to

person or property, or (b) a deprivation of a

constitutionally protected right or privilege.

Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1996).

Furthermore, a plaintiff may recover “only when the

conspiratorial conduct of which he complains is

propelled by ‘some racial, or perhaps otherwise

class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus.’” Id.

(quoting Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 102

(1971)).

The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ claim because

it found that they failed to plead a conspiratorial

agreement. Specifically, it held that plaintiffs failed to

raise a plausible inference that the student protestors

acted in concert “at least in part for the very purpose”

of depriving plaintiffs of their civil rights. See Bray v.

Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263, 276

(1993)). This was error, plaintiffs argue, because their

allegations give rise to a plausible inference that the

student activists’ “conscious objective” was the impairment of Jewish and Israeli students’ rights to be free

from racial violence under the Thirteenth Amendment, to make and enforce contracts under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1981, and to hold real and personal property under

42 U.S.C. § 1982.

For purposes of this appeal, we assume without

deciding that violations of §§ 1981 and 1982 can form

the basis of an unlawful conspiracy under § 1985(3).

But see Great Am. Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Novotny,

442 U.S. 366, 378 (1979) (“[D]eprivation of a right

created by Title VII cannot be the basis of a cause of

action under § 1985(3).”); Jimenez v. WellStar Health

Sys., 596 F.3d 1304, 1312 (11th Cir. 2010) (extending

41a

that logic to bar claims based on violations of § 1981);

see also Brown v. Philip Morris Inc., 250 F.3d 789, 806

(3d Cir. 2001) (observing that “[t]he great weight of

precedential authority . . . does not suggest that

§§ 1981 or 1982 claims in general may form the basis

of a § 1985(3) action”); Pirghaibi v. Moss, 175 F. App’x

120, 122 (9th Cir. 2006) (noting that “whether

violations of sections 1981 and 1982 [could] serve as

the basis for a § 1985(3) claim” was an “uncertain

proposition under Supreme Court precedent”). We

need not reach this issue because, for the reasons

explained below, we hold that plaintiffs failed to plead

that the student activist groups conspired “for the very

purpose” of depriving plaintiffs of their constitutional

right to be free from racial violence, their contractual

rights, or their property rights. Bray, 506 U.S. at 276.

We begin with plaintiffs’ claim that the MIT

Coalition Against Apartheid and other MIT student

groups conspired to engage in “racially and ethnically

motivated violence against Jews and Israelis in contravention of the Thirteenth Amendment.” But

plaintiffs have supplied no facts that, if proven, could

justify recovery on this theory. See Aulson, 83 F.3d at

3–7 (affirming dismissal for failure to state a claim

where complaint failed to plausibly allege discriminatory animus). Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged two acts of

arguable “violence” against Jewish or Israeli students:

a protestor, who plaintiffs do not allege was even

affiliated with MIT or belonged to the challenged

student groups, raising a bike tire at a passing Jewish

student; and a single, unnamed protestor shoving a

Jewish student who was filming the protest. Plaintiffs’

complaint did not allege that these two incidents were

authorized, endorsed, or planned by any student

group, let alone that they were the purpose of the

protests. To imagine that these two altercations were

42a

the “conscious objective” of protests coordinated, as

plaintiffs allege, by multiple groups and involving

dozens of students overly strains credulity, as does the

suggestion that only these two incidents would have

occurred if “racially and ethnically motivated violence”

were the explicit purpose of the protests. And for the

reasons we have already expressed, we are not

persuaded by plaintiffs’ assertion that the student

protestors’ speech itself constituted “serious racial

violence” under the Thirteenth Amendment. Although

we must draw reasonable factual inferences in

plaintiffs’ favor at this stage, we need not credit “bald

assertions, unsupportable conclusions, periphrastic

circumlocutions, and the like.” Aulson, 83 F.3d at 3; see

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (“While legal conclusions can

provide the framework of a complaint, they must be

supported by factual allegations.”).

Plaintiffs’ next theory is that the purpose of the

alleged conspiracy between the student groups was to

interfere with Jewish and Israeli students’ property

and contract rights by forcing them to “endure[] chants

that [were] overtly antisemitic” and to be “subjected to

walkouts,” “doxed,” “kicked out of study groups,” and

“prevented from entering public areas of campus”

because they were Jewish or Israeli.20 As we have

explained above, little of what occurred can be deemed

antisemitic merely because plaintiffs declare it to be

so, and plaintiffs’ allegations offer no facts to plausibly

Plaintiffs also claim that their property rights were violated

when a man “urinated on [Hillel] after being provoked at” a MIT

Coalition Against Apartheid protest. However, the complaint does

not allege that the man was in any way affiliated with MIT or the

student groups it accuses of conspiracy, and the report plaintiffs

attached to their complaint indicates that the man was someone

with “paranoid beliefs” who had “nothing to do with MIT.”

43a

suggest that the protestors agreed to target Jewish

students, as opposed to agreeing to demand that the

university adopt the activists’ position regarding the

conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

In lieu of pointing to any evidence of the student

groups’ purpose, plaintiffs instead catalogue the

harms suffered by Jewish and Israeli students. They

argue that “the co-conspirators’ actions aimed to

impair the rights of Jews and Israelis because[] they

repeatedly impaired their contractual rights . . . and[]

violated their property rights.” But “[a] conspiracy is

not ‘for the purpose’ of denying equal protection simply

because it has an effect on a protected right.” Bray, 506

U.S. at 275. In short, plaintiffs’ conclusory assertions

fail to state a claim that impairing the rights of Jewish

students was among the student protestors’ “conscious

objective[s].” Bray, 506 U.S. at 275–76; see Alston v.

Spiegel, 988 F.3d 564, 577–78 (1st Cir. 2021) (observing

that inferences “are not infinitely elastic”).

Plaintiffs’ theory is particularly implausible given

the joint statements from the student groups to which

it points as evidence of a conspiracy. Those statements

state plainly the protestors’ purported goals: to pressure

MIT to “divest” from Israel and to cease “sponsored

research for the Israeli Occupation Forces,” to express

“solidarity with Columbia students” who were “calling

for divestment,” to “speak out” to “stop the genocide”

and “defend Palestine,” and to express their shared

desire for a “permanent ceasefire in Gaza.” We need

not, of course, take the protestors’ word for it. But

where plaintiffs have failed to adduce any facts

suggesting a purpose beyond or behind these stated

goals, “dismissal is proper.” Alston, 988 F.3d at 571; see

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 681 (holding that, while plaintiffs’

allegations were “consistent with” a discriminatory

44a

purpose, they did not “plausibly establish this purpose” given “more likely explanations”).

All told, plaintiffs have failed to state a claim of

conspiracy under § 1985(3), and thus their § 1986

claim must fail.

Plaintiffs’ final claims are that MIT is liable under

Massachusetts law for breaching its contracts with

Jewish and Israeli students by failing to uphold

various policies, and for negligently failing to protect

its students from antisemitic harassment. After

dismissing plaintiffs’ federal claims, the district court

declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over

plaintiffs’ state-law claims. Because we agree that

plaintiffs failed to state a federal claim, we affirm the

dismissal without prejudice of plaintiffs’ state-law

claims. See Rodriguez v. Doral Mortg. Corp., 57 F.3d

1168, 1177 (1st Cir. 1995) (“As a general principle, the

unfavorable disposition of a plaintiff ’s federal claims

at the early stages of a suit, well before the commencement of trial, will trigger the dismissal without

prejudice of any supplemental state-law claims.”).

VI.

One loose end remains. Plaintiffs contend that the

district court abused its discretion by denying

plaintiffs leave to amend their amended complaint yet

again after it was found lacking. The district court’s

final order made no mention of plaintiffs’ request for

leave to amend, which – plaintiffs argue – means there

was “no adequate basis for the court’s decision.” See

Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962) (“[O]utright

refusal to grant the leave [to amend] without any

justifying reason appearing for the denial . . . is merely

abuse of [a district court’s] discretion . . . “); Fed. R. Civ.

45a

P. 15(a)(2) (“The court should freely give leave

[to amend a pleading] when justice so requires.”).

It is unsurprising that the district court did not

grant plaintiffs the leave they desired, because

plaintiffs never moved to amend their complaint any

further. Instead, plaintiffs added a single sentence in

their memorandum of law opposing MIT’s motion to

dismiss: “To the extent the Court deems any of

Plaintiffs’ allegations inadequate, Plaintiffs request

permission to amend their complaint.” This cursory

mention, presented not as a motion but embedded in

some other document, does not require a district

court’s express response under our caselaw. “It is

within the court’s discretion to deny leave to amend

implicitly by not addressing the request when leave is

requested informally in a brief filed in opposition to a

motion to dismiss.” Fire & Police Pension Ass’n of Colo.

v. Abiomed, Inc., 778 F.3d 228, 247 (1st Cir. 2015)

(quoting Joblove v. Barr Labs, Inc., 466 F.3d 187, 220

(2d Cir. 2006), abrogated on other grounds by, F.T.C. v.

Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013)). Furthermore, this

court has specified that a statement that “in the event

that the Court finds that the Amended Complaint fails

to state a claim, Plaintiff requests leave to replead,”

contained within an opposition to defendants’ motion

to dismiss, does not constitute a motion for leave to

amend under Rule 15(a). Gray v. Evercore Restructuring

L.L.C., 544 F.3d 320, 327 (1st Cir. 2008). Here, as in

Gray, plaintiffs “failed to request leave to amend,” and

the district court “cannot be faulted for failing to grant

such leave sua sponte.” Id. The district court did not

abuse its discretion by declining to grant plaintiffs an

additional opportunity to amend their complaint a

second time.

46a

VII.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district

court’s order on all counts.21

This conclusion moots any need to consider MIT’s challenge

to the standing of the organizational plaintiff.

47a

APPENDIX B

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

————

No. 24-1800

————

STAND WITH US CENTER FOR LEGAL JUSTICE;

KATERINA BOUKIN; MARILYN MEYERS,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,

Defendant, Appellee.

————

Entered: October 21, 2025

————

JUDGMENT

This cause came on to be heard on appeal from the

United States District Court for the District of

Massachusetts and was argued by counsel.

Upon consideration whereof, it is now here ordered,

adjudged and decreed as follows: The district court's

dismissal of the suit for failure to state a claim is

affirmed.

By the Court:

Anastasia Dubrovsky, Clerk

cc: Marlene Jaye Goldenberg, Melissa S. Weiner, Glenn

Danas, Ashley Boulton, Daryl J. Lapp, Elizabeth

Howar Kelly, Ishan Kharshedji Bhabha, Lauren J.

Hartz, Edward M. Wenger

48a

APPENDIX C

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

————

Civil Action No. 24-10577-RGS

————

STANDWITHUS CENTER FOR LEGAL JUSTICE,

KATERINA BOUKIN, AND MARILYN MEYERS

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

————

July 30, 2024

————

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON

DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS

STEARNS, D.J.

This putative class action against Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT) challenges the adequacy

of MIT’s response to acts of antisemitism occurring on

its campus. Plaintiffs StandWithUs Center for Legal

Justice (SCLJ), Katerina Boukin, and Marilyn Meyers

claim that, after the bloody October 7, 2023 Hamas

terrorist attack on Israel, repeated incidents of

antisemitic conduct took place on the MIT campus,

causing Jewish and Israeli students to fear for their

personal safety. The First Amended Complaint (FAC)

alleges four counts: deliberate indifference to a hostile

educational environment impacting Jewish and Israeli

students in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (Count I); failure to prevent

49a

a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights in violation

of 42 U.S.C. § 1986 (Count II); negligence (Count III);

and breach of contract (Count IV).1 Plaintiffs seek

compensatory and punitive damages and prospective

injunctive relief.

MIT now moves to dismiss the FAC, lodging

challenges under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). On July

24, 2024, the court convened a hearing on MIT’s

motion. After careful consideration and commendable

argument from both sides, the court will allow MIT’s

motion.

BACKGROUND

The relevant facts, drawn from the FAC and taken

in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, are as follows.

On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian Sunni Islamist

terrorist group Hamas committed a violent terrorist

attack on Israel.2 The day after the attack, multiple

MIT student groups – including the Coalition Against

Apartheid (CAA) and Palestine@MIT – released a joint

statement “hold[ing] the Israeli regime responsible for

all unfolding violence.” FAC ¶ 147. The statement was

posted on CAA’s and Palestine@MIT’s blogs, was sent

to every undergraduate student’s email, and was

shared on Palestine@MIT’s Instagram account. See id.

Counts I-III are alleged by all plaintiffs. Count IV is alleged

by Boukin and Meyers individually and, for injunctive relief only,

on behalf of a putative class of “[a]ll Jewish and/or Israeli

students enrolled at MIT after October 7, 2023, who did not

participate in the pro-Palestine protests described [in the FAC].”

First Am. Compl. (FAC) (Dkt. # 40) ¶ 366.

“Hamas” is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama alIslamiya, which translates roughly into Islamic Resistance

Movement. In 1997, the U.S. Department of State designated

Hamas as a Terrorist Organization under § 219 of the

Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1189.

50a

¶ 145. On October 19, 2023, CAA hosted a rally, which

Meyers attended. A protestor shouted at Meyers and a

friend, “Your ancestors . . . didn’t die to kill more

people.” Id. ¶ 156. Others at the rally chanted phrases

such as “Palestine will be free, from the river to the

sea.”3 Id. ¶ 157. Student groups continued demonstrating throughout the semester, walking out of classes,

organizing “die-ins,” and protesting in Lobby 7, a

“major thoroughfare” on the MIT campus. See id.

¶¶ 159-162, 169-188.

On November 9, President Sally Kornbluth issued a

statement warning the Lobby 7 protestors that their

conduct violated MIT’s Code of Conduct; threatening

the students with disciplinary action, including

potential suspension; and ordering them to vacate

Lobby 7 immediately.4

After deciding that suspending students could lead

to “collateral consequences . . . such as visa issues,”

MIT changed course and chose to suspend student

violators from only non-academic campus activities.

Id. ¶ 184. Around the same time, MIT also provision3

“From the river to the sea” refers to the area between the

Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in which Israel, the

West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are located.

While some claim the phrase is a call for peace in the region,

many, including the majority of members of the U.S. House of

Representatives, condemn the phrase as “outrightly antisemitic.”

See H.R. Res. 883, 118th Cong. (2023).

MIT provided documents intended to show that MIT began

responding forcefully to the intimidation of Jewish and Israeli

students on October 10, 2023. See Mem. of Law in Supp. of Def.

MIT’s Mot. to Dismiss the Am. Compl. (Mot.), Ex. 1 (Dkt. # 42-2).

As these are not properly before the court on a 12(b)(6) motion

(and they have no bearing on MIT’s 12(b)(1) motion), the cou

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