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Federal Judge Dismisses Harvard Graduate’s Antisemitism Lawsuit Against School
April 20, 2025, Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University and Harvard Square scenes with students and pedestrians. Photo: Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect.
A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a former graduate student accusing Harvard University of unlawfully declining to discipline two anti-Israel activists who led a mob that surrounded him and screamed “Shame!” in his face.
“While the court does not condone an assault on a fellow student by campus protesters, nothing in the Amended Complaint plausibly supports the notion that his assailants’ conduct was motivated by race-based antisemitism,” US District Judge Richard G. Stearns wrote in his ruling on Thursday.
Stearns dismissed former Harvard Business School student Yoav Segev’s complaint without prejudice, so Segev can sue again.
The ruling confers a significant legal victory to Harvard, which has twice requested that Segev’s complaint be tossed out of court on the grounds that it failed to articulate a legally recognizable grievance. Harvard submitted its first motion to dismiss in October, and Segev fired back on Nov. 17, with his attorneys writing in response that Harvard’s litigation strategy is a “morally indefensible” attempt to disappear allegations which they say the school knows are true.
“The harassment also came from Harvard faculty, who publicly blamed Mr. Segev because his presence, as a Jew, was somehow ‘frightening’ to other students,” Segev’s attorneys wrote in a memorandum to the court. “This pervasive harassment also includes Harvard mistreating and misleading Mr. Segev to deny him a fair process while protecting and rewarding his attackers. Harvard ignores these allegations.”
They added, “Moreover, while the complaint focuses on Mr. Segev’s assault, ensuring harassment, and Harvard’s unreasonable response, it details the many other ways Harvard neglected the entire Jewish community, of which Mr. Segev is a member.”
Harvard argued in turn that Segev “does not attempt to explain how the facts alleged about that single, short-lived event — shouting and some brief instances of non-injurious physical contact — could be vile enough to have a systemic effect on his education experience.”
Stearns — who was appointed to the bench in 1993 by former US President Bill Clinton (D) and served as a political operative for and special assistant to Israel critic and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern — seemed to imply in his ruling that Segev was randomly singled out and not targeted for being Jewish, while supporting the university’s contentions.
“He has not shown that he experienced severe and pervasive racial harassment,” he wrote in the decision. “At best, Segev notes that he was overtly wearing a blue bracelet symbolizing his support for Israel. But it is not clear that protesters understood the import of his bracelet or that, if they did, they were acting based on antisemitism rather than disagreement with the underlying political message.”
Stearns, who received his juris doctor from Harvard Law School in 1976, added, “That other students and even some faculty members characterized events in a way that Segev viewed as inaccurate does not alter the calculus. Segev does not plausibly allege facts which would allow the court to reasonably infer that any misreporting by these students and faculty members was motivated by antisemitism, or more to the point, reflected any official policy fostered by defendants.”
The ruling came a year after Stearns dismissed a separate antisemitism lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In August 2024, he tossed a suit alleging that MIT failed to protect its Jewish students from an explosion of antisemitism on campus that followed Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In his opinion, Stearns accused the Jewish plaintiffs of expecting MIT officials to be “clairvoyant” in anticipating a surge of antisemitism. He also rejected their argument that pro-Hamas demonstrators at MIT intentionally violated the civil rights of Jewish students by, as is alleged, calling for a genocide of Jews in Israel and perpetrating numerous other acts of harassment and intimidation.
“Plaintiffs frame MIT’s response to the conflict largely as one of inaction. But the facts alleged tell a different story,” Stearns wrote in his decision. “Far from sitting on its hands, MIT took steps to contain the escalating on-campus protests that, in some instances, posed a genuine threat to the welfare of Jewish and Israeli students, who were at times personally victimized by the hostile demonstrators. MIT began by suspending student protesters from non-academic activities, permitting them only to attend academic classes, while suspending one of the most undisciplined of the pro-Palestine student groups.”
The MIT suit was again defeated in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in October.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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High-Stakes US Special Forces Mission Rescues Airman From Iran After F-15 Crash
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft takes off for a mission supporting Operation Epic Fury during the Iran war at an undisclosed location, March 9, 2026. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
US forces staged the audacious rescue of an airman behind enemy lines after Iran downed his fighter jet, officials said on Sunday, resolving a crisis for President Donald Trump as he weighs escalating the war, now in its sixth week.
The airman rescued by special operations forces, who Trump said was a colonel, was the weapons-systems officer on the downed F-15, a US official told Reuters.
“Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the airman was injured but “he will be just fine.”
The officer was the second of two crew members on the warplane that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defenses. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several aircraft were destroyed during the US rescue mission, Tasnim news agency reported.
Reuters reported on Friday that the first crew member had been retrieved, triggering a high-profile search by both Iran and the United States for the remaining airman.
Iranian officials had urged citizens to help find him, hoping to gain leverage against Washington in the war Trump and Israel launched on February 28.
Trump has threatened to escalate the conflict in the coming days with attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Had Iran captured the airman, the ensuing hostage crisis could have shifted American public perception of a conflict that opinion polls show was already unpopular.
Trump said the airman was rescued “in the treacherous mountains of Iran” in what he said was the first time in military memory that two US pilots had been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory.
The official told Reuters that as the weapons-systems officer was moved from near a mountain to a transport aircraft parked within Iran, US forces had to destroy at least one of the aircraft because it had malfunctioned.
U.S. AIRCRAFT HIT
The rescue effort, involving dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search were hit by Iranian fire but escaped from Iranian airspace.
Separately, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.
Still, Trump was triumphant.
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue.
The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.
While Trump has repeatedly sought to portray the Iranian military as being in tatters, they have repeatedly been able to hit US aircraft.
Reuters reported on US intelligence showing that Iran retains large amounts of missile and drone capability. Until just over a week ago, the US could only determine with certainty that it had destroyed about one-third of Iran’s missile arsenal.
The status of about another third was less clear, but bombings probably damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, Reuters sources said.
The US and Israeli war on Iran has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the global economy with soaring energy prices that are fueling fears of inflation.
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On Easter, Pope Leo Urges World Leaders to End Wars, Renounce Conquest
Pope Leo XIV waves from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after delivering his “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) message, on Easter Sunday at the Vatican, April 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Leo urged global leaders in his Easter message on Sunday to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination.
The pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, lamented in a special message to the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that people “are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down!” the first US pope exhorted. “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!”
Leo did not mention any specific conflicts in the message, known as the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing. It was unusually brief and direct.
The pope said that the story of Easter, when the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead three days after not resisting his execution by crucifixion, shows that Christ was “entirely nonviolent.”
“On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars,” Leo urged.
Leo, who is known for choosing his words carefully, has been forcefully decrying the world’s violent conflicts in recent weeks and ramping up his criticism of the Iran war.
In a sermon for the Easter vigil on Saturday night, he urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world but to work for peace.
The pope made a rare direct appeal to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, urging him to find an “off-ramp” to end the Iran war.
In his address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday to the Square below, decorated with thousands of brightly colored flowers for the holiday, Leo offered brief Easter greetings in ten languages, including Latin, Arabic and Chinese.
The pope also announced he would return to the Basilica on April 11 to host a prayer vigil for peace.
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Temple Mount Set for Limited Reopening to Jews and Muslims
Israeli National Security Minister and head of Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement to members of the press, ahead of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
i24 News – Israeli authorities are preparing to partially reopen the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to both Jewish and Muslim worshipers for the first time since the start of the war with Iran, under a tightly controlled and highly restricted security arrangement, i24NEWS has learned.
According to details obtained by i24NEWS, the Israeli police, backed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, are also expected to permit limited access for Jewish worshipers to the Western Wall as part of the same phased plan.
Under the framework, access to the Temple Mount and surrounding holy sites would be restricted to small groups of up to 150 people at a time. In the event of a missile alert, all visitors would be immediately evacuated in accordance with emergency protocols.
The decision follows a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing demonstrations in a limited format. Police argue that a consistent standard must apply across both civic gatherings and religious sites, with Ben-Gvir insisting that “there cannot be one rule for demonstrations and another for the Temple Mount.”
However, the reopening contradicts recommendations from the Home Front Command, which has advised keeping sensitive sites closed due to the ongoing risk of missile attacks.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin has proposed transferring authority over such security-related decisions exclusively to defense officials, an initiative that could reshape the balance between the judiciary and security establishment regarding restrictions on public access.