A Jewish law student has filed a lawsuit against Rutgers University, alleging administrators violated his right to an educational environment free from discrimination by turning a blind eye to campus antisemitism.
“Yoel Ackerman is being targeted by Rutgers for standing up to anti-semitism. This lawsuit is just one step in our quest to change the culture at Rutgers which has allowed antisemitism to fester,” David Mazie, his legal representative, told National Review in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.
Ackerman landed in trouble after calling out a Palestinian law student for sharing an Instagram video within a Student Bar Association (SBA) group chat purporting to expose “3 lies being told about Palestine.” The clip sought to debunk the claim that “people were raped” during the October 7 atrocities and that “250 people were killed at a concert.”
“There isn’t a single video or photo suggesting people were killed at a concert or that a mass shooting took place,” the video claims.
Ackerman challenged the student to explain why they were sharing a misleading, inflammatory video in an academic group chat.
“I am just clearing up some information,” the student responded, according to Ackerman. The incident led Ackerman to warn he was “taking receipts of the law school students who are publicly supporting Hamas” which, in turn, inspired members of the SBA to investigate and seek to expel him from the organiztion. They briefly succeeded until Ackerman retained legal counsel, and the body walked back its decision.
“I have never felt more hurt or embarrassed in my life,” Ackerman wrote in late October, reflecting on the matter. “The lies, and the hatred spewing from their mouths. The president of the ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ came into the Zoom meeting in the middle and on the spot made a motion to impeach me. Again, zero facts and zero evidence. Just venom.”
The incident, and the administration’s handling of campus antisemitism since October 7, led Ackerman to file suit. “Rutgers Law School administrators and faculty were on notice and had knowledge of the discriminatory, antisemitic video, yet failed to act in a timely or appropriate manner to protect Mr. Ackerman from the hostile school environment,” the legal document reads.
“Instead, they shockingly targeted – or permitted the targeting of – Mr. Ackerman, an Orthodox Jewish Rutgers Law Student, who was the victim of the antisemitic speech, and created a victim-blaming narrative in which he became the purported bully,” the filing continues, naming senior Rutgers leaders including several law school deans.
The document cites the social-media posts from a law school dean, Sahar Aziz, days after the October 7 atrocities as evidence that Rutgers is not taking the concerns of Jewish students on campus seriously.
Aziz shared social-media posts denying that Hamas terrorists committed rape on October 7. “ENOUGH! Turns out she wasn’t ‘paraded naked,’ but was taken to a hospital!” Muhammad Shehada, an Al Jazeera and Vice journalist, wrote above a story about Shani Louk, the German-Israeli concertgoer kidnapped and murdered by the Palestinian terror group. “Turns out there were no rapes or ‘beheaded babies!’ the activist continued in a post shared by Aziz.
On October 9, two days after Hamas’ invasion, Aziz shared another article captioned: “#Israel Can’t Imprison 2 Million Gazans Without Paying a Cruel Price.”
In late December, these and similar statements, including some accusing Israeli protesters opposing judicial reform of seeking to “safeguard master-race democracy,” led a New Jersey School Ethics Commission to find Aziz’s statements “were likely perceived as offensive and hurtful to members of the [Westfield] District’s Jewish community as well as to the Jewish community as a whole.” The complaint was ultimately dismissed due to “a procedural technicality,” Ackerman’s lawsuit argues.
Ackerman’s complaint further highlighted the New Jersey school’s long-standing ties to antisemitic professors. In 2017, food science professor Michael Chikindas shared antisemitic cartoons and a YouTube video on Holocaust denial. “No comments. Just reference to the actual publications,” the academic, who still teaches at the school, wrote on his Facebook page. Rutgers is also home to Jasbir Puar, a controversial academic who has been accused of blood libel for arguing that Israeli soldiers harvest the organs of Palestinians.
“Mr. Ackerman’s case is another egregious example of Rutgers tolerating a culture of antisemitism on its campuses,” a press release issued Tuesday stated. “Rutgers’ tolerance for antisemitism exists across its campuses, a culture which has it now prosecuting a student for objecting to antisemitic propaganda. Rutgers’ transgressions have recently caused the U.S. Department of Education to open an investigation over alleged antisemitism at Rutgers.”
The school did not respond to NR’s request for comment.