Harvard settles lawsuits, adopts IHRA definition of Jew-hatred

(JNS) — Harvard University has resolved two federal lawsuits alleging antisemitic discrimination on campus with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education. 

As part of the agreement, Harvard will incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, and the contemporary examples appended to the definition, when evaluating whether alleged discrimination violates the university’s non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies.

Harvard University was sued in May 2024 for antisemitic discrimination against Jewish students in the wake of pro-Palestinan campus protests that emerged after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Southern Israel. 

Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center and a former U.S. assistant secretary of education, told JNS that Harvard’s announcement marks a shift beyond symbolic gestures.

“What is so important about Harvard’s incorporation of the IHRA working definition is that they are not merely using it for educational purposes,” he said. “They are committing to weaving it into their nondiscrimination policies and practices.”

“This is something that every college and university should do,” Marcus added. “Most of them have been resisting it.”

IHRA’s non-legally binding, working definition, which the group adopted in 2016, includes examples of Jew-hatred like comparing Israel to Nazis or unfairly criticizing the Jewish state. Some 43 countries have adopted the definition, as have international organizations and state and local governments.

“It is part and parcel of federal law, so it shouldn’t be so hard to convince universities that they need to do it,” Marcus told JNS. “But we’re in a much better position as a result of this agreement, now that Harvard is publicly stating that it will be using this working definition of antisemitism for compliance purposes.”

Marcus thinks that Harvard’s adoption of the IHRA definition “will be helpful when we are dealing with colleges and universities around the country.” He also doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Harvard opted to settle the lawsuits as U.S. President Donald Trump began his second term.

“I would call this a Trump effect,” he said. “Nobody wants to have pending litigation when the new sheriff comes to town. I would credit the force of President Trump’s statements about campus antisemitism as a significant reason why so many colleges have been more interested in resolving cases in recent weeks than they had been prior to the general election.”

Marcus told JNS that the agreement could set a precedent for how colleges address campus Jew-hatred. “We see this as a pivotal moment,” he said. “It’s not so much that antisemitic incidents will stop, but that more administrators will be prepared to address the incidents as they arise.”

College administrators have resisted doing the right thing, “and a lot of them have been reluctant to change their approach unless their peers are doing the same,” Marcus told JNS. “Having Harvard University on board means that we will be able to point to this standard every single day, and it will be the new floor for future agreements and will be the new standard for future compliance.”

Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, told JNS that the resolution of the lawsuit will be a turning point for the university. 

“I think you can really trace the need for this settlement as a clarification back to the infamous Capitol Hill hearing with president Claudine Gay, in which the president of the university was pushed to answer this somewhat complex and difficult legal question about Harvard’s rules,” he said. 

“That’s one of the reasons that this settlement is, in my perspective, good for the university as well as being good for the plaintiffs, because it clarifies something that might not have needed clarification were it not for those events,” Feldman said. “But because of those events, it’s very valuable to get clarification that antisemitism, just like racism and Islamophobia, are encompassed within the university’s anti-discrimination policies.”

At the Dec. 5, 2023 hearing, Gay and the presidents of University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were asked repeatedly if calling for genocide against all Jews violated their campus policies. The presidents testified before the House education that calling for genocide of Jews wouldn’t necessarily violate their procedures.  

“The university needs to be able to protect the academic freedom of all of the students, faculty and staff and simultaneously, it also needs to be able to assure that everyone who’s in the university is treated equally and is not discriminated against or bullied or harassed,” Feldman said. 

“Both of those objectives are, I would say, mission critical for the university,” he said. “What’s good about today’s settlement is that, in my view, it really respects both of those objectives.”

Lawrence Bacow, who was Harvard’s president from 2018 to 2023, told JNS that he is confident that the university will apply the IHRA definition “thoughtfully in a way that respects freedom of speech.”

“Whenever Harvard acts, it attracts attention from other institutions,” he said. “Whether it prompts others to follow remains to be seen.”