Three Jewish children were expelled from a private school in Virginia in March after their parents complained about the unaddressed antisemitic bullying their 11-year-old daughter experienced at school.
The school had allowed anti-Semitism to take root in her class—in, for example, this picture of a social studies class project depicting the attributes of a “strong historical leader” with the face of Hitler
The parents of the 11-year-old said their daughter had endured months of “severe and relentless” antisemitic harassment that had gone unresolved by school officials at The Nysmith School for the Gifted.
The school also canceled its annual tradition of hosting a Holocaust survivor to speak about antisemitism, citing concerns about escalating tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war.
Some students at Nysmith School taunted the 11-year-old for being “Israeli” and referred to Jewish people as “baby killers,” adding that they deserved to die because of the events of the Israel-Hamas war. The bullies told the 11-year-old that “everyone at the school is against Jews and Israel, which is why they hate you.”
They also made fun of her for the death of her uncle, saying they were glad he “died in the October 7th attack,” despite the fact that he had died years prior.
A few weeks later, Kenneth Nysmith, the headmaster of the school, emailed the parents that all three of their children — a son in second grade and two daughters in sixth grade — were expelled, effective immediately.
Three Jewish kids were expelled from a Herndon school after their parents complained about the antisemitic bullying their daughter endured.
Washington, D.C. (July 1, 2025) - Today, The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Dillon PLLC filed a complaint on behalf
This is “a trend we’re seeing lately with universities very badly treating Israeli students and postdocs,” Rachel Lerman, of the Brandeis Ce
by Aaron Bandler
A Jewish Israeli researcher faced “discrimination and insidious, malicious conduct intended to permanently tarnish his reputation and career” at Stanford University, including “tampering with his lab results and manufacturing a bogus complaint against him, merely for being Israeli,” according to a federal lawsuit filed on Thursday.
The suit, brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the firm Cohen Williams, accuses the private school in Stanford, Calif., of being “complicit in permitting an environment saturated with intimidation and harassment of Jewish and Israeli students to flourish on campus.”
Shay Laps, a postdoctoral researcher, arrived at Stanford roughly six months after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, having been recommended by a Nobel laureate, according to the lawsuit. He aimed to “develop his research of synthetic and ‘smart’ insulin, which would revolutionize treatment for millions of people suffering from diabetes,” the Brandeis Center stated.
He faced extensive discrimination in the lab of Danny Chou, an associate pediatrics professor at Stanford, per the lawsuit, including tampering with his research, a fabricated sexual harassment complaint against him and being locked out of a lab.
“I was just shocked by the set of facts,” Rachel Lerman, vice chair and director of appeals and critical motions at the Brandeis Center, told JNS. “We all think we’ve seen it all, but this guy, he’s really traumatized by what happened.”
‘Fraudulent results behind his back’
On Laps’s first day, Terra Lin, a research assistant in the lab, who “knew nothing about him other than that he was a Jewish scientist from Israel,” told him “never to speak with her in person” and if he needed anything, he must do so in writing, according to the Brandeis Center.
“When Laps tried to join a group of co-workers, including the lab staffer, for lunch, the lab staffer instructed Laps not to sit with her or other lab employees. She also urged other researchers in the lab to shun Laps,” the Brandeis Center stated. (According to the suit, Lin also tried to “frustrate, delay or inhibit” Laps’s requests for research materials and equipment, at one point referring him to a colleague recovering in the hospital from a major car accident.)
According to the Brandeis Center, she tampered with Laps’s research, “producing fraudulent results behind his back that could have ruined his career and encouraging him to discard all evidence of her tampering.” It added that when Laps found out about such sabotage, the lab’s leader and his mentor “refused to address the issue.”
Anti-Israel demonstration on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, DC in September 2024. Photo: Bryan Olin Dozier via Reuters …
by Dion J. Pierre
A Jewish undergraduate student has defeated a $10 million lawsuit brought by a fired Georgetown University administrator who filed the claim because the student’s efforts to criticize the official’s sharing of antisemitic invective on social media contributed to the termination of their employment.
The student’s victory parries a barrage of accusations which the former administrator, Aneesa Johnson, lobbed at the student, Georgetown, and others. It also vindicates the free speech rights of Jewish students denouncing antisemitism at the highest levels of university governance, according to the student’s legal counsel, provided by The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Gibson Dunn.
“This ruling is a victory for every student who has ever feared speaking out against antisemitism on campus,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “A young woman raised her voice about hateful content posted by a university administrator — and was sued for it. Today, the court made clear that kind of retaliation has no place in our legal system. The Brandeis Center will always stand with those who refuse to stay silent.”
Mario Torres and Lester Wilson were trapped inside a Columbia building by masked protesters last spring, assaulted, and called ‘Jew lovers,’
By: Frannie Block
Published: Apr 26, 2025
Mario Torres and Lester Wilson were trapped inside a Columbia building by masked protesters last spring, assaulted, and called ‘Jew lovers,’ according to a new lawsuit filed Friday.
The Columbia University janitors who were held hostage during the violent takeover of a campus building last spring are suing their alleged captors for battery, assault, and conspiracy to violate their civil rights, according to a copy of the suit reviewed exclusively by The Free Press.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court on Friday evening by Torridon Law and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on behalf of Columbia janitors Mario Torres and Lester Wilson. It alleges that over 40 Columbia students and “outside agitators,” some but not all of whom were arrested by police following the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall last April 29, “terrorized” both Torres and Wilson “into the early morning of April 30th, assaulted and battered them, held them against their will, and derided them as ‘Jew-lovers’ and ‘Zionists.’ ”
The occupation of Hamilton Hall occurred almost exactly a year ago, and both Torres and Lester say they have been struggling to cope ever since. The lawsuit states both men suffered physical injuries the night of the occupation, and that they have also been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that has required ongoing medical care. Neither has been able to return to work, and are instead “subsisting on interim Workers Compensation payments” which are “inadequate” to pay for their basic needs and medical bills, according to the suit.
“Mario and Lester are decent, honest, hardworking men who have been through hell. None of this ever should have happened,” said Tara Helfman, one of the Torridon lawyers on the case.
The lawsuit describes the protesters, the majority of whom “donned masks and hoods to conceal their identities,” as “reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan.” It claims they “are part of a broad pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic network of organizations, groups, and cells that are connected through a largely untraceable underground communications system. They promote and resort to violent and illegal tactics, and are motivated by invidious discrimination against Jews and supporters of Jews.”
The Brandeis Center also filed a federal lawsuit late Friday on behalf of two students, a professor, and a rabbi at the University of California, Los Angeles, alleging that several groups, including National Students for Justice in Palestine, Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network, American Muslims for Palestine, and Westchester People’s Action Coalition, engaged in “a coordinated campaign of egregious acts of racial exclusion, intimidation, and assault” to “intimidate Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”
The “occupiers” named in Torres and Wilson’s lawsuit include leaders of Columbia’s most vocal anti-Israel groups like the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Coalition, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace. Other defendants are people not associated with the university who were allegedly involved in the building takeover, including James Carlson, described in a New York Post story as a “longtime anarchist” and as the son of millionaires, and Lisa Fithian, a professional protest trainer and “lifelong agitator.” Also named in the suit is The People’s Forum, a far-left activist group responsible for organizing many of the anti-Israel protests at Columbia and across New York City.
Over 40 protesters, including Carlson, were arrested and charged with trespassing in the days after the Hamilton Hall occupation. But Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office dropped the charges, claiming the charges would have been “extremely difficult” to prove because the protesters wore masks and covered security cameras.
While Torres and Wilson are not Jewish, the lawsuit alleges that antisemitism played a central role in the harm inflicted upon the janitors, who the protesters knew were likely to be in the building that night. The lawsuit states that “the Occupiers were motivated by perceptions that Mr. Torres and Mr. Wilson supported Jews and presented potential obstacles to the execution of their plot to take over and occupy Hamilton Hall.”
The lawsuit provides unprecedented insight into how the events of that night unfolded, including descriptions of how outside groups were involved in both the planning and execution of the building’s occupation.
The night of April 29, both Torres and Wilson were working the night shift as “heavy cleaners” inside Hamilton Hall, which is located in the center of Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus. Just past midnight, they heard loud shouts and then saw masked and hooded protesters armed with “rope, zip ties, and crow bars” breaking into the building and shattering windows, according to the suit.
Both Torres and Wilson were working on the building’s third floor, but they were separated and unable to find each other during the chaos.
The suit states that masked rioters approached Torres and demanded he leave. They then “pressed a roll of cash into his hand and said, ‘This is bigger than you.’ ” After Torres initially refused to leave, the suit says, he noticed the rioters had become “more violent and threatening,” so he “demanded that they let him out of the building.” At this point, the protesters wouldn’t let him out, saying, “It’s over” and “It’s too late.” Later, they chastised him for being a “Jew-lover” and a “Zionist,” according to the suit.
The suit alleges that a man later identified as Carlson confronted Torres and began “shoving” him and “standing in his way,” and then threatened him, saying: “I’m going to get 20 guys up here to fuck you up.” A photo of Torres involved in a physical altercation with Carlson, captured by a freelance photographer who had accompanied the mob of protesters, later went viral on social media. Torres previously told The Free Press in an exclusive interview that he sustained injuries to his hand.
“We don’t expect to go to work and get swarmed by an angry mob with rope and duct tape and masks and gloves,” he said at the time. “I was freaking out. At that point, I’m thinking about my family. How was I gonna get out? Through the window?”
Wilson was cleaning a bathroom when he “heard a commotion in the hallway,” and then stepped out to find “two or three mashed individuals moving chairs” which would later be used to barricade doors. The suit states after Wilson refused to leave the building, and instead demand the protesters leave instead, “masked individuals began shoving him and ramming furniture into him.”
When both men attempted to flee the building, they found all of the exits had been barricaded with heavy furniture including tables and vending machines, and had been locked shut using zip ties and bike chains, according to the lawsuit.
As the night unfolded, the suit states, both men feared for their lives. In the days after the break-in, Wilson told The Free Press he thought he “could have been killed in there.”
The lawsuit states both men also noticed that the break-in was “highly coordinated.” They observed people with “cases of water and food,” “rolled-up mattresses,” and “tape and rope.”
In the hours before the takeover of the building, The People’s Forum held a “volunteer meeting” at its Manhattan headquarters where “a group of co-conspirators . . . solidified and set into motion their coordinated plan to seize Hamilton Hall,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges this is also where protesters “produced and distributed hand-drawn maps and diagrams of Hamilton Hall,” and that some of the defendants bought “rope, zip ties, bike locks, food and water, cots, and other supplies.” These supplies, the lawsuit alleges, were purchased with money from The Westchester People’s Action Coalition, which reportedly funds the National Students for Justice in Palestine.
At 11:27 pm, The People’s Forum posted on X, calling on its supporters to “MOBILIZE TO COLUMBIA NOW!” One hour later, the rioters broke into the building.
The rioters’ tactics, according to the suit, were based on a how-to guide titled “Palestine Action: The Underground Manual,” which instructs protesters to do “an effective reconnaissance” of the “target” location, including assessing if and where there may be security guards, how far away the nearest police station is, how many “access points” a building has, and how the location’s alarm system works. The manual also recommends different types of “actions” protesters can take, including breaking into buildings and “smashing windows.”
[ Maps, diagrams and other planning documents included in the lawsuit. ]
Fithian, the professional protester trainer, stayed outside during the occupation, but according to the suit, “she had a material role in coaching, training, and directing the rioters on how to storm and seize Hamilton Hall and how to bar the doors so that no one could enter or leave, based on her years of experience agitating and protesting.” In the past, Fithian has reportedly earned up to $300 per day training activist groups on demonstration and disruption strategies.
The professors and students in the UCLA case are suing under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, alleging that these anti-Israel groups "plotted, coordinated, and executed a common plan to deprive Plaintiffs and other Jews at UCLA of their rights” and to “subject Plaintiffs to racial intimidation and violence and to stir up race hatred at UCLA.”
The lawsuit specifically points to the encampment and so-called “autonomous zone” set up at UCLA as “terroristic tactics, which have proven sadly effective in rendering campus a hostile environment for Jews.”
While the Brandeis Center has previously sued universities such as Harvard and University of California, Berkeley for their alleged failures to combat antisemitism, these lawsuits represent the first time the center is going directly after individuals and groups alleged to be behind the rise in antisemitic and violent protests, according to Ken Marcus, founder of the Brandeis Center.
“Too often, the mainstream media creates a false narrative about innocent political protesters who are simply trying to advance a peace agenda, and who are getting punished, when in fact, what we’re seeing is organized activity by groups who support the terrorist agenda of Hamas and who are engaged in outright violence,” Marcus said. “These cases demonstrate that the campaign against campus antisemitism isn't about speech and free expression, but rather an effort to curtail the extreme violence that is unleashed at some of our most prestigious institutions when administrators look the other way.”
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It seems kidnapping hostages is a common tactic for terrorists.
Given Columbia gave them little in the way of consequences, hopefully a lawsuit will do the trick.
That’s where Price, a member of the Tufts Community Union Judiciary, stepped in. His post is tasked with the job of fact-checking and removing false information from student government legislation. Price denounced the falsehoods in the referendum text. That led SJP and its supporters to single him out for a campaign of harassment, culminating in an effort to get him thrown out of his position by a disciplinary committee because of his “pro-Israel bias.”
Price’s treatment — not just by SJP but also others in student government — was outrageous. Not only was he subjected to profane insults but also forced to sit through student government meetings in which he was questioned about his Jewish background and beliefs. At a Zoom meeting during which the referendum was discussed, he was muted and literally prevented from speaking. The message from the student government and from a university administration that stood by silently as Price suffered these insults was clear: If you are a pro-Israel Jew, you are going to be treated as a racist advocate of white supremacy who must be marginalized, rather than respected and heard.
It is fear of similar treatment that more often than not convinces Jewish students to keep their heads down and stay silent when Israel is being falsely besmirched as an “apartheid state.” Indeed, that’s the whole point of the BDS movement. While ostensibly a campaign of economic warfare against the Jewish state, it has done nothing to damage Israel’s vibrant economy through its pathetic drive to undermine, for example, sales of Sabra hummus. Instead, like other successful cancel culture efforts, it seeks to silence those who refute intersectional myths about the Palestinian war against Israel being linked to the struggle for civil rights in the United States and branding Zionism as racism.
UCLA’s refusal to refer its students for prosecution or even investigate the crime was thwarted when legal staff at StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center converged on the campus to walk students into the UCLA PD and UCI police stations to file criminal complaints. Filing those complaints forced the police to investigate and then refer the cases to prosecutors. Ultimately, that included both student and non-student participants.
Whether or not the perpetrators at UCLA or UCI are prosecuted, it seems the reality on the ground at UC campuses has been altered. In the days after Thanksgiving 2018, I delivered four consecutive lectures on Israel history at California campuses: UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, and UCLA. Despite concerns, no interference or disruption manifested.
The UCLA event was sponsored by a coalition of groups including the same Students Supporting Israel chapter that had been harassed last May. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center attended to kick off the livestreamed event. At UCLA, it was a new day. When campus police learned of the event, they took immediate steps to ensure it would proceed with no interference. Two UCLA PD officers were dispatched to the event itself, both highly trained and deeply conversant with the pro-Israel and Jewish communal scene. A representative of the administration joined the officers. The police and administration declared that, in the event of a disruption, perpetrators would be given one warning to immediately cease and desist; and if they did not, “they will be arrested and charged.” This, coupled with the LA Prosecutor’s watchful eye, combined to insulate the event from criminal disruption.
Thus, thanks to leadership at StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center, and courageous students who stepped forward, combined with intense media scrutiny, the rate of acceleration of anti-Semitism on campus and especially at UC colleges, has been temporarily been slowed—at least, slowed for the moment.
“If the university does nothing about attacks like this, it effectively condones them, sending an ugly message and setting a dangerous precedent,” said Rachel Lerman, vice chair of the Brandeis Center.
According to the Brandeis Center, the behavior by the pro-Palestinian students “directly violates the UMass Student Code of Conduct, which applies to misconduct even at off-campus events that are hosted by or affiliated with student organizations, registered or unregistered.”
It also noted that the university is required to investigate and sanction students or groups that violate this code.
The center warned that should the university fail to do so, administrators send a dangerous message that “students and student organizations are free to intimidate, harass and assault individuals who attend their events, based on such individuals’ perceived support of Israel,” and that “the school is a refuge for students [and student organizations] ready to disregard the rights of others and to inflict physical harm on individuals who belong to ‘out’ groups.”
“It is outrageous that participants in a protest hosted by a registered student group would feel free to insult, intimidate and physically assault a reporter silently covering the event simply because he was identified as a ‘Zionist,’ ” Rachel Lerman, vice chair of the Brandeis Center, told JNS. “If the university does nothing about attacks like this, it effectively condones them, sending an ugly message and setting a dangerous precedent. It’s almost a wink and a nod at groups like SJP that their behavior will be given a pass, even when it violates the law and the university code of conduct, so long as the target is a ‘Zionist.’ ”
Lerman added that “we know from our recent survey that Jewish students are already wary of publicly expressing their Jewish identity. Groups like SJP and Sunrise DC cannot be given carte blanche to treat supporters of Israel as racists—marginalizing and excluding Jews who affiliate with Israel as part of their ethnic identity is not just unlawful, history has shown us that it leads to violence, as this instance demonstrates.”
