Instructor and former graduate student sue MIT for antisemitism
Professor of Linguistics Michel DeGraff is also a defendant
COLIN CLARK -- THE TECH
On June 25, Will Sussman, a former MIT PhD student; Lior Alon, an instructor in the Department of Mathematics; and The Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism filed a lawsuit against MIT and Professor of Linguistics Michel DeGraff, accusing them of antisemitism.
According to the complaint, the MIT administration fostered a “climate of terror” for its “failure to act reasonably” during the pro-Palestine encampments in 2024, refusal to “investigate [Sussman’s] claims of anti-Jewish discrimination,” and inadequate sanctions against DeGraff. The plaintiffs will request a jury trial.
In an email to The Tech, MIT spokesperson Sarah McDonnell wrote that MIT will be a defendant in the lawsuit. She emphasized that “MIT rejects antisemitism,” citing a transcript of a President Kornbluth video from Nov. 14, 2023: “Antisemitism is real, and it is rising in the world. We cannot let it poison our community.”
Lior Alon
In the lawsuit, Alon reported that demonstrators called for an “intifada” and for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” in the early days of the 2023 Israel-Gaza war. Meaning “shaking off” or “rebellion” in Arabic, “intifada” refers to two Palestinian uprisings against Israel in the late 1980s and the early 2000s that involved non-violent civil disobedience and terrorist attacks. Both intifadas were violently suppressed by Israel.
The phrase “from the river to the sea” refers to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea formerly occupied by British Mandatory Palestine — a phrase that has been used by both Palestinians and Israelis to demand the establishment of a single state in the region. Many pro-Palestine demonstrators consider their use of the slogan a call for peaceful coexistence, whereas some Jews and Israelis see it as a call for Israel’s destruction.
Alon, who interpreted these chants as threats, emailed President Kornbluth but said that he failed to get a substantive response. Alon also reported that pro-Palestine demonstrators prevented him from entering and exiting the encampment, which he attributed to his Israeli and Jewish identity.
Alon reported feeling increasingly ostracized from his colleagues who hold pro-Palestinian views. He withdrew his children from MIT’s daycare and began to fear for his safety. The lawsuit states that DeGraff disclosed Alon’s personal information on social media, including his Israeli military history, and filmed Alon in the encampment as he sang the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah.” The lawsuit cites the online circulation of these videos as a cause of “unwarranted hostility” towards Alon, who says he was confronted by strangers in public places.
Alon was also mentioned in DeGraff’s article in Le Monde Diplomatique, “MIT’s Orwellian language masks its stance on Gaza protests,” which claimed that Alon “participated in well-rehearsed propaganda that erases the anti-Zionist Jewish students and misrepresents them, along with their non-Jewish comrades, as violent and antisemitic.” Alon holds that these claims are false and that he did not make such statements. Furthermore, Alon believes that DeGraff wrote a “damaging” portrayal of his call for help in the encampment, describing Alon as “mocking his own ‘fear’” by “sarcastically” shouting that he felt unsafe.
In June 2024, Alon emailed President Kornbluth about his experiences with “antisemitic harassment and defamation” by DeGraff, requesting the MIT administration to take down DeGraff’s posts. The administration did not respond to his requests. Alon stated that MIT’s “antisemitic atmosphere” has negatively impacted his mental health and career, ascribing his inability to receive a tenure-track offer to “antisemitic public exposure.”
William Sussman
Sussman dropped out of MIT in Jan. 2025, claiming that he experienced “extreme and intolerable” antisemitic harassment by DeGraff. He is now an associate at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. On Nov. 9, 2024, Sussman posted on X to express his concerns about one of DeGraff’s Instagram posts, which condemned the Zionist “mind infection” and its relationship with particular “Jewish student life organizations” such as Hillel and Chabad. Both groups have voiced support for the Israeli community in the wake of the October 7th attacks.
In response, DeGraff posted messages on X, tagging Sussman’s account. Sussman emailed DeGraff and copied senior administrators at MIT asking to be left alone, resulting in subsequent X posts regarding Sussman by DeGraff. The post stated that Sussman’s actions had “triggered against me racist insults; accusations of plagiarism, lies & antisemitism; incitement to violence; threats, etc. Now Will has asked that I ‘cease & desist.’”
Sussman emailed again his request to be left alone, prompting a prolonged argument over email in which senior administrators reportedly failed to intervene.
The alleged harassment caused Sussman to file an Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response (IDHR) complaint in November 2024. Per Sussman, IDHR did not find antisemitic discrimination or harassment in DeGraff’s social media posts and emails about Sussman. The case was redirected to MIT Human Resources (HR). Sussman then sent an appeal to IDHR in December 2024. He says that IDHR again responded that the case was not subject to appeal because they did not consider DeGraff’s conduct to be antisemitic. Sussman dropped out of MIT’s PhD program shortly after receiving this decision.
Robin Pick, Esq.
Robin Pick, a Senior Counsel from the Brandeis Center, is representing Sussman and Alon in the lawsuit. A civil rights attorney by training, Pick stated that “Title VI’s protection against discrimination based on national origin extends to Jews based on their shared ancestry and ethnicity.” Pick acknowledges that “there are many Jews who are not religious,” but emphasized that “they are still Jews and being Jewish is a core part of their identity.”
Pick maintained that many Jews view Israel as an important part of their Jewish identity, “regardless of their opinions on the policies of the Israeli government.” She argued that the calls for intifada at MIT reminded Israelis of the First and Second Intifadas they lived through that was “an atmosphere of terror.” During the Intifadas, violent attacks such as suicide bombings happened in Israel. “When they heard calls for ‘intifada’ on their own campus, these were not just words to them,” Pick wrote in a statement to The Tech. “They heard a call to murder all Jews — anywhere in the world — including on the MIT campus.”
Pick contended that the antisemitic environment at MIT has caused many Israelis and Jews to “live in fear,” affecting their mental health and professional lives. She asserted that the MIT administration ignored those who needed help and failed to enforce policies, which “normalized antisemitism” on campus. She cited DeGraff’s actions and recent events, such as stickers with the slogan “you can’t deport the intifada” posted around campus, as examples of harassment and targeting towards Jews. “MIT must uphold its legal obligations under Title VI, not only for Jews and Israelis, but to keep the entire campus safe,” Pick wrote.
Michel DeGraff
In a statement obtained by The Tech, DeGraff called Alon’s allegations baseless, citing an Oct. 25, 2023 Fox News interview in which Alon described pro-Palestinian student protesters as “pro-Hamas.” According to DeGraff, his claims in Le Monde Diplomatique were supported by Alon’s comment that pro-Palestine protesters engaged in “clear concrete call[s] for terror acts.” DeGraff denies that his article was a “smear campaign” against Alon.
DeGraff contended that the phrase “mind infection,” which he used to describe Sussman’s rhetoric, originates in the work of Israeli philologist Professor Nurit Peled-Elhanan. A peace activist, Peled-Elhanan’s work focuses on fostering dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. DeGraff said that his Instagram post was about anti-Palestinian bias in the Israeli education system, which Peled-Elhanan studies, and that the post did not constitute “antisemitism” nor “harassment.”
In his statement, DeGraff stressed his views on the distinctions between Zionism and Judaism, arguing that the plaintiffs' “conflation” of the terms is “one of the most lethal linguistic trumperies in the settler-colonial Zionist arsenal.” DeGraff said that “there are Jews of many persuasions, both Zionists and anti-Zionists,” adding that “Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism.” He also argued that Jewish students were “among the most active” members of the pro-Palestine encampment, noting that they organized a Passover Seder with other demonstrators.
Like the plaintiffs, DeGraff criticized MIT leadership for its failure to address antisemitism. However, he believes that the administration’s shortcomings lie mostly in its neglect of anti-Zionist Jewish students and organizations such as Jews for Collective Liberation (JCL). “Antisemitism, on a par with any other kind of hate, including anti-Palestinian racism, has no place at MIT or anywhere else,” DeGraff said.
In his statement, DeGraff said that anti-Zionist Jewish students “feel excluded and vilified” when President Kornbluth’s May 2024 letter “referred to ‘our Israeli and Jewish students’ being supported by a counter-protest” against the encampment. He claimed that a “narrow ‘us-vs-them’ categorization of who counts as ‘Jewish’” fractures the Jewish community and is “antisemitic.”
DeGraff stated that he has repeatedly faced disciplinary action from MIT. He views this discipline as “retaliation for my insisting to teach about Palestine and Israel and my advocating for my academic freedom and my freedom of expression.” DeGraff reports that his salaries for the 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 school years have been “frozen, without pay raise.”
DeGraff asserts that this lawsuit is the latest in a “pattern of intimidation” against his beliefs. As an example, DeGraff pointed to the repeated rejection of his proposed special seminar on the language of decolonization in Palestine, Israel, and Haiti.