Five Palestinian Americans, who include a professor, a former professor, a student and two former students at Columbia, filed a lawsuit against the university on Monday, claiming it helped to foster a hostile and discriminatory environment on campus following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel.
The complaint, filed in New York State Supreme Court, is the latest lawsuit in a series of ongoing legal battles over Columbia’s handling of campus speech, safety and discipline following the attack and during the subsequent war in Gaza.
The lawsuit comes a little more than a year after the university agreed to pay a $200 million fine to settle federal allegations claiming it had failed to do enough to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.
“Columbia has discriminated against its students, faculty and staff who are of Palestinian origin through its failure to adequately protect its community members from harassment by others, and indeed, actively encouraged such harassment,” the complaint reads.
Kimberly Winston, a spokeswoman for the university, declined to comment on Tuesday, citing the pending litigation. Jonathan Wallace and Rihan Issa, the lawyers listed for the five plaintiffs, did not respond to emails or phone calls.
Though the complaint mentions Columbia faculty and staff members, university administrators and affiliated student groups, it focuses on the university’s Office of Institutional Equity, which describes itself on its website as a “centralized resource for addressing all reports of discrimination and discriminatory harassment.”
Columbia’s leadership has described the creation of the office in August 2024 as an essential step in combating antisemitism and restoring order in the wake of campus protests against the war in Gaza.
The plaintiffs argue that the office routinely investigated Palestinian students and staff members based on a definition of antisemitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which lawyers for the plaintiffs argue conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
As a result, the lawsuit says, the office investigated students and university employees for participating in pro-Palestinian protests and or wearing kaffiyehs to class.
At the same time, according to the complaint, the office did not adequately look into complaints of harassment against Palestinian students and faculty members.
“In stark contrast to the O.I.E.’s aggressive investigation of complaints alleging antisemitism based on protected Palestinian advocacy, Columbia systematically failed to investigate complaints submitted by its Palestinian community members,” the complaint says, referring to the Office of Institutional Equity. “The O.I.E. rarely acknowledged receipt of such complaints, and when it did, it failed to take any follow-up action.”
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs describe instances in which they say they were “doxxed,” physically attacked or surveilled in the immediate aftermath of the 2023 attacks and during the subsequent protests on Columbia’s campus.
While attending the university as a graduate student in 2024, one plaintiff, Layla Saliba, was attacked with a foul-smelling chemical substance during a campus protest that January.
Ms. Saliba said she received no institutional support, and the university later paid a $395,000 settlement to the student perpetrator, who sued after being suspended. (In his lawsuit, the student said he had used a nontoxic “fart” spray.)
In the complaint, a former full-time lecturer claims she was threatened by a university physician and doxxed, forcing her to resign before her contract expired. Several plaintiffs say they developed anxiety and other mental health issues because of the harassment.
The lawsuit presents Shai Davidai, a former Columbia professor, as a ringleader of the doxxing campaigns. Mr. Davidai has routinely posted online about former colleagues who support a Palestinian state.
Mr. Davidai said in a statement on Tuesday that the lawsuit was “lie-riddled,” “anti-Israeli” and “anti-American.” He is not listed as a defendant in the suit.
“I have never doxxed anyone, and I never would,” Mr. Davidai wrote in an email.
The plaintiffs, who are seeking a jury trial and damages, believe Columbia violated both state and city human rights laws.
“Rather than fulfill its legal obligations to remediate the hostile environment,” the complaint says, “Columbia actively participated in and amplified the racially, ethnically and politically motivated targeting of Palestinian students, staff and faculty.”
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