An Orthodox Jewish student filed a federal discrimination complaint against the College last Thursday. The complaint was filed on behalf of the student by the Brandeis Center, a nonprofit organization that engages in legal advocacy on college campuses and combats antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, according to its website.
The complaint, filed with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), alleges that the College discriminated against the student due to his religion in violation of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act (FHA).
The complaint states that the student cannot access his dorm with an electronic key card during the Sabbath without violating the rules of his religious practice, and alleges the College denied his request for a physical key. The student, who keeps kosher, also alleged that the College has failed to provide him with kosher meals.
Following news of the complaint, community members posted antisemitic comments on Yik Yak, an anonymous campus social media platform, which the College vowed to investigate.
To resolve the complaint and avoid litigation, the College can attempt conciliation with the student. Conciliation is an alternative litigation in which the College would resolve the complaint by reaching a settlement with the student under the guidance of HUD. If conciliation fails, HUD can still decide to bring charges against the College.
Since 2021, the Brandeis Center has taken legal action against several institutions of higher education, alleging antisemitic discrimination on behalf of Jewish students. This is the first time the Center has filed a complaint under the FHA.
In the past, the Center has reached settlements with the institutions against which it filed complaints. “Voluntary resolutions are always available to the parties where there is a will to work things out,” Kenneth Marcus ’88, who founded the Brandeis Center, wrote in an email to the Record.
Marcus added that his status as an alum did not impact the Center’s decision to take on the case. “I love Williams College and return to Williamstown nearly every year,” he wrote. “Although I don’t know [President] Maud [S.] Mandel, I have heard great things about her, and I was disappointed to learn what was happening under her watch. My hope is that she can fix the problem here and ensure that justice is done.”
The Record reached out to Mandel, who reiterated her willingness to work with the student who made the complaint.
College Chaplain and Director of Jewish Life Rabbi Seth Wax, in an interview with the Record, emphasized his commitment to “do the most that [he] can to support students’ practice of Judaism.”
The complaint also asks the College to provide housing accommodations to religious students, adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, and institute campus-wide antisemitism training.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by institutions including Harvard, Columbia, and Pomona in settling antisemitism complaints, originated as a scholarly definition and was adopted by the IHRA in 2016.
The definition has drawn criticism for its potential to stifle free speech, including from Ken Stern, one of its creators. Stern, a leading antisemitism researcher who led the drafting of the IHRA definition, told the Record that he takes issue with the Brandeis Center’s demand for the College to adopt the definition.
“I have no problem with somebody representing a student alleging that their religious accommodation hasn’t been sufficiently met by an educational institution,” he said. “What disturbs me in this is that the request for relief includes a paragraph about using the IHRA definition, which doesn’t say anything about, ‘Do you need a key to get into your dorm room?’”
The definition gained momentum when the IHRA adopted it. Now, it threatens free speech on campus, Stern said. “[The definition] has been promoted very aggressively to try to curtail speech about Israel,” he said. “Some of the speech I don’t like either, but I find it very frightening that you’d want to stop what a professor is teaching or kill that type of expression on a campus.”
Stern likened institutions adopting the IHRA definition as a result of lawsuits to contemporary restrictions in Republican-led states on teaching about race and gender. “At Texas A&M, there’s professors who can’t teach about Plato because of rules about whether gender is appropriate or not,” he said. “This is trying to do the same thing around Israel, and I can’t imagine a liberal arts institution like Williams ever going down that road.”
