StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice v. MIT

• Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• Decided: October 21, 2025
• Docket: 24-1800
• Status: Published

Opinion

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

No. 24-1800

STAND WITH US CENTER FOR LEGAL JUSTICE; KATERINA BOUKIN; MARILYN MEYERS,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,

Defendant, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Gelpí and Kayatta, Circuit Judges, and Smith, District Judge*

Glenn A. Danas, with whom Ashley M. Boulton, Clarkson Law Firm, P.C., Melissa S. Weiner, Pearson Warshaw, LLP, Marlene J. Goldenberg, and Nigh Goldenberg Raso & Vaughn, PLLC were on brief, for appellants. Ishan K. Bhabha, with whom Lauren J. Hartz, Jenner & Block LLP, Daryl J. Lapp, and Troutman Pepper Locke LLP were on brief, for appellee.

October 21, 2025

* Of the District of Rhode Island, sitting by designation. KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. This case emerges from a school

year of tension among students, faculty, and administrators at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in response to

extraordinary violence in the Middle East. Two plaintiffs are MIT

students. The third is StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, the

legal arm of a California-based membership organization "dedicated

to combatting antisemitism." Together, plaintiffs allege that MIT

failed to take sufficient action to curtail a surge of anti-Israel

and pro-Palestinian student protests, thereby allegedly subjecting

MIT's Jewish and Israeli students to antisemitic harassment. The

district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

We begin by summarizing the facts not as they necessarily

are, but as plaintiffs allege them to be, drawing all reasonable

factual inferences in plaintiffs' favor. See Douglas v. Hirshon,

63 F.4th 49, 55 (1st Cir. 2023); Watterson v. Page, 987 F.2d 1, 3

(1st Cir. 1993).

On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian group Hamas launched

a grotesque attack on Israel, intentionally killing hundreds of

unarmed civilians and taking many others hostage. That same day,

the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, a student group recognized at

the time by the university, reposted tweets from other accounts

stating: "Palestinians cannot invade Palestine"; "What is

- 2 - happening in occupied Palestine is a response to weeks and months

and years of daily Israeli military invasions into Palestinian

towns, killing of Palestinians, and the very fact that millions of

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are besieged under Israeli

blockade"; and "Progressive commentators saying Palestinians have

entered 'Israeli territory' . . . baby, check yourselves. You're

part of the problem."

The following day, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid

and another student group, Palestine@MIT, sent an email to all

undergraduate students with a "Joint Statement on the Current

Situation in Palestine." The statement said, among other things,

that the student groups "h[e]ld the Israeli regime responsible for

all unfolding violence"; "unequivocally denounce[d] the Israeli

occupation, its racist apartheid system, and its military rule";

and "affirm[ed] the right of all occupied people to resist

oppression and colonization." It was signed "[u]ntil liberation."

An Instagram post by Palestine@MIT indicated that the MIT Black

Graduate Student Association and a group named MIT Reading for

Revolution also supported the joint statement.

On October 10, 2023, pro-Palestinian students wrote

"Free Palestine" and "Occupation on Gaza" in chalk outside a vigil

organized by Jewish students. Seven days later, a student from

the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid sent an email to all student

group members at MIT stating that "Israel dropped bombs on the al-

- 3 - Ahli Arab Hospital" and killed "[o]ver 500 people and

counting" -- an allegation plaintiffs say was later "discredited

by a variety of governmental and independent sources." Jewish

students "responded by sharing information which discredited this

rumor" but "were attacked online by their peers," and one

unidentified student "felt they could no longer participate" in a

study group because of this criticism.

On October 19, 2023, pro-Palestinian students led by the

MIT Coalition Against Apartheid held a rally outside the MIT

Student Center, at which attendees chanted "Palestine will be free,

from the river to the sea!" and "There is only one solution!

Intifada revolution!"1 Plaintiff Meyers and another Jewish student

were approached by one rally attendee who "raised the front wheels

of his bike at them" and said, in reference to Holocaust victims,

"Your ancestors didn't die to kill more people." This rally caused

plaintiffs and other Jewish and Israeli students to feel unsafe or

unwelcome on campus. MIT knew about the rally through reports,

security monitoring of events, and "other means."

1Plaintiffs' complaint states that "From the River to the Sea" is "a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea . . . which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state." The complaint also states that "intifada" means "uprising" or "shaking off" and is "used to describe periods of intense Palestinian protest against Israel," which have historically included "violence" and "mass suicide bombings."

- 4 - Four days later, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid

staged a walkout in which an unspecified number of protestors left

classes, disrupted some other classes by shouting and unfurling

Palestinian flags, and gathered in the vicinity of Lobby 7, a major

thoroughfare through which Plaintiffs Boukin and Meyers often

traveled to attend classes and on-campus events. Lobby 7 was not

a permitted protest area. The following week, the MIT Coalition

Against Apartheid organized a "Die In" in Lobby 7 and taped posters

of Gazans on lecture halls and campus buildings.2 MIT did not halt

the "Die In."

On November 2, 2023, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid

staged a fourth event, this time outside the offices of Jewish

professors and MIT's Israel internship program, MISTI.3 Protestors

rattled the door handles of offices, chanted "From the river to

the sea" and "MISTI, MISTI, you can't hide," and verbally charged

"MISTI with genocide." Staff members "reported feeling alarmed,

intimidated, and even afraid." Plaintiffs do not allege that they

or any Jewish or Israeli students were present during this

activity.

2 Plaintiffs offer no further information as to what this "Die In" entailed. 3 MISTI stands for MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives.

- 5 - MIT did not send police or discipline students who

participated in any of those four protest events. Rather, six

days after the fourth alleged protest, MIT issued a communication

outlining more restrictive policies around campus protests,

postering, and free expression. The policies indicated, among

other things, that students were not permitted to disrupt living,

working, and learning spaces at MIT, and that large banners and

flags could not be displayed.

The next day, November 9, 2023, the MIT Coalition

Against Apartheid, Coalition for Palestine, and other student

groups led another protest in Lobby 7. The protestors included

MIT faculty and staff and members of the general public. Protest

chants included "[F]rom the river to the sea," "Resistance is

justified," and calls for "intifada." A Jewish student recording

the protest on her phone was shoved by an unidentified protestor.

MIT Hillel4 cautioned Jewish students not to "directly engage the

protestors for your physical safety and wellbeing" and suggested

that they "choose paths around campus that avoid Lobby 7."

At 12:00 p.m., four hours after the protest began, MIT

officials warned protestors that they could be disciplined if they

did not leave Lobby 7 in the next fifteen minutes. While a group

4 MIT Hillel is an organization that "serves as a hub for Jewish life on campus." About Us, MIT Hillel, https://hillel.mit.edu/aboutus [https://perma.cc/XW8Z-39H7] (last visited Oct. 2, 2025).

- 6 - of Jewish counter-protestors departed as ordered, the pro-

Palestinian protestors did not comply. Afterward, MIT President

Sally Kornbluth sent a letter to the MIT community regarding the

protest, stating that it was "disruptive, loud, and sustained

through the morning hours," that it violated "MIT guidelines and

policies," that "the administration had serious concerns that it

could lead to violence," and thus that "the administration felt it

was essential to take action." The letter announced that the

protestors who had remained past the 12:15 p.m. deadline would be

"suspended from non-academic campus activities" as an interim

action, and that the disciplinary cases would be referred to the

Ad Hoc Complaint Response Team for "final adjudication." MIT did

not publicize whether any "actual disciplinary measures . . . were

taken" against the student protestors. The head of the MIT

Department of Urban Studies and Planning sent an email to students

in the department indicating that he would protect students

involved in the protest.

Sometime before February 26, 2024, the MIT Coalition

Against Apartheid held a protest outside of MIT's Institute

Discrimination and Harassment Response (IDHR) office. After that

protest, IDHR issued orders forbidding contact between the MIT

Coalition Against Apartheid members and IDHR staff. In mid-

February, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid held another protest

in Lobby 7, in which students "unfurled large flags" and "chanted

- 7 - 'From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!'" The next

day, MIT suspended the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid as a student

group.

The campus turmoil extended beyond protest alone. On

November 14, 2023, MIT announced a new "Standing Together Against

Hate" initiative to combat antisemitism on campus. Sometime later,

however, Jewish and Israeli faculty members resigned from the

committee because they did not think it was doing enough to address

antisemitism on campus. In the November/December 2023 issue of

the Faculty Newsletter, MIT professor Michel DeGraff published an

opinion expressing support for pro-Palestinian student protestors,

denouncing "ongoing bombing (that is, war crimes) against

hospitals in Gaza" and "genocide" of Palestinians by the Israeli

army, and arguing that "racism" might be fueling the MIT

administration's alleged decision to denounce antisemitism but not

islamophobia with regard to the campus protests; the letter closed

with the slogan "from the river to the sea, from Gaza to MIT."

In December 2023, the MIT Women's and Gender Studies

Department and the MIT Coalition for Palestine co-hosted an event

and invited students to join a book club discussing a book by Ahed

Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who on one occasion allegedly posted

online, "Come on settlers, we will slaughter you. . . . What Hitler

did to you was a joke." On December 6, 2023, Israeli-American

author Miko Peled gave a talk organized by the MIT Coalition

- 8 - Against Apartheid and MIT Coalition for Palestine, in which Peled

"encouraged his audience to go to MIT Hillel and confront MIT's

Jewish students there about Gaza"; Peled joked about not being

able to say "From the river to the sea," and students in the

audience began chanting the phrase.

On December 13, 2023, lecturer Mauricio Karchmer

publicly resigned from MIT, stating that he could no longer "teach

those who condemn [his] Jewish identity or [his] support for

Israel's right to exist in peace with its neighbors." The

following month, a non-Jewish student emailed MIT to complain about

an interfaith event in which MIT's Interfaith Chaplain and

Spiritual Advisor to the Indigenous Community stated that

Palestinians were being "wrongly subjugated and oppressed by white

European colonizers." A few days later, MIT Israel Alliance, "of

which at least one [p]laintiff is a member," emailed MIT's

administration to complain about MIT's failure to deter

"discriminatory and harassing behavior toward Jewish and Israeli

students," informing the university that some Jewish students had

"relocated or chosen to stay in Israel" as a result.

On March 7, 2024, plaintiffs filed their initial

complaint in the District of Massachusetts, alleging antisemitic

and anti-Israeli discrimination in violation of Title VI of the

Civil Rights Act of 1964. That same month, pro-Palestinian student

activists began a new campaign in which they emailed faculty whose

- 9 - research related to Israel and accused them of being "complicit

in . . . [Israel's] crimes against humanity." The activists asked

these faculty to "immediately cease these [Israel-related]

projects and reject all future contracts" with the Israeli military

and similar entities, and they contacted students of the targeted

faculty asking them to "reflect" on their professors' receipt of

Israeli funding. Two student groups, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid and Graduates for Palestine, made posts on Instagram

that "shamed by name" faculty whose research was funded by the

Israeli government and noted that the information came from an

"internal [MIT] grant management tool" that, per plaintiffs, is

meant only for MIT faculty and staff use.

Additionally, according to plaintiffs, "[t]hroughout the

spring" MIT allowed what plaintiffs call "antisemitic posters" to

"be displayed on campus." As an example, plaintiffs point to a

poster that "remain[ed] hanging for approximately one month"

depicting two fists in handcuffs and proclaiming, "No to Zionism

and Racism."

Matters came to a head on April 21, 2024, when pro-

Palestinian protestors erected an encampment on Kresge Lawn,

toward the center of MIT's campus and adjacent to Hillel. The

encampment included approximately 30 students5 and 15 tents.

5 MIT reports having over 11,000 students as of October 2024. Enrollment Statistics, MIT, https://facts.mit.edu/enrollment-

- 10 - Protestors displayed signs stating, "Zionism is apartheid, it's a

genocide, it's murder, it's a racist ideology rooted in settler

expansion and racial domination and we must root it out of the

world. Zionism is a death cult," and "Boys in Blue, KKK, IOF[,]

They are all the SAME."

Through social media, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid further called for action from others, stating: "We

stand in solidarity with our steadfast siblings in Palestine. We

rebuke the complicity of our institution, and today, we take the

next step together in fighting for what we believe in. Everyone,

come support the encampment on Kresge Lawn." They posted further

calls to "vote yes" on a referendum calling for a "permanent

ceasefire" and the cutting of ties "between MIT and the Israeli

military." In another social media post, the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid stated, "We will continue to be loud and be heard and

not be deterred away from our fight for Palestine and our fight

against MIT's complicity with the occupation."

Disturbed by the student encampment and protests, some

Jewish students at MIT moved their Passover seder from Hillel to

"an off-campus location" and asked MIT to permit them to attend

class remotely. An unnamed graduate student emailed President

Kornbluth, MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles, and other university

statistics [https://perma.cc/6D55-7MSD] (last visited Aug. 7, 2025).

- 11 - administrators demanding that they "assure" Jewish and Israeli

students that MIT would not "'both sides' the encampment" and

accusing the protestors of "ma[king] campus such a hostile

environment that it is nearly impossible for [Jewish and Israeli

students] to work, study, or keep up with [their] research

commitments." Nobles replied by email that MIT "underst[oo]d" the

student's concern and was "working to move in a constructive

dialogue with those who are protesting," and she asked the student

for "patience and understanding as [MIT did] this hard work." She

further "urge[d the student and the student's peers] not to

counterprotest."

The encampment remained in place from April 21, 2024, to

May 10, 2024. One week in, Kornbluth released a video and

statement about the protests and MIT's response.6 Kornbluth

explained that while the encampment was "a clear violation of

[MIT's] procedures for registering and reserving space for campus

demonstrations," the situation had "so far been peaceful." She

noted that the students who had broken MIT's rules would "face

6 Plaintiffs excerpt portions of Kornbluth's remarks in their complaint, and the complaint includes a hyperlink to the statement in its entirety. See Video transcript: MIT Community Message from President Kornbluth, MIT Office of the President, https://president.mit.edu/writing-speeches/video-transcript-mit- community-message-president-kornbluth [https://perma.cc/E25Q- DX9E] (last visited Oct. 16, 2025). We therefore treat the full statement as incorporated in the complaint by reference. See Watterson, 987 F.2d at 3. We treat other statements contained in documents relied upon and linked to by the complaint similarly.

- 12 - disciplinary action," described an agreement reached with

protestors "not to make noise after 7:30 pm," and stated that to

"avoid any further escalation," she had directed campus police to

monitor the encampment "24 hours a day." She rejected calls to

"compromise the academic freedom of our faculty" whose research

involved Israel or who received Israeli funding. Finally, she

stated that while she "believe[d the protestors' chants were]

protected speech, under [MIT's] principles of free expression,"

the encampment "need[ed] to end soon."

Nonetheless, the encampment continued, and on May 3,

2024, MIT installed high fencing around the encampment to contain

it. The following day, journalists recorded protestors at the

encampment chanting slogans in Arabic, which -- according to

plaintiffs -- could be translated as "From water to water,

Palestine is Arab!"; "Palestine is free, Israel out"; "We want to

talk about the obvious, we don't want to see Zionists"; "The iron

gates of Al Aqsa, open for the martyr!"; and "From water to water,

death to Zionism!"7

By May 6, 2024, the encampment still had not ended, and

MIT attempted to draw a harder line: It informed protestors that

if they did not depart by 2:30 p.m., they would face discipline.

7 Plaintiffs do not allege that they or others informed MIT of the English translations of these chants, nor that MIT was otherwise on notice of their meaning.

- 13 - But this strategy appears to have backfired. The protest

organizers posted on social media calling for others to join the

encampment. As tensions mounted, an individual jumped over the

fence surrounding the encampment, sparking a "surge" in which a

new wave of protestors breached the fence. By the evening of

May 6, approximately 150 protestors had gathered at the

encampment.

The next day -- May 7 -- Hillel had planned to use Kresge

Lawn to celebrate the state of Israel. But because the lawn was

occupied by the protest encampment, Hillel moved the event. On

May 8, protest activities intensified. Protestors blocked the

entrance and exit to Stata Center garage, a campus building a short

distance from Kresge Lawn, and defaced and discarded Israeli and

American flags. Protestors repeated the tactic the following day,

again blocking the entrance to the garage and preventing MIT

"community members" from entering and exiting, as well as shutting

down nearby Vassar Street. This time, nine students were arrested.

On May 10, 2024, MIT successfully cleared the

encampment, and the ten students who remained were arrested. MIT

issued a statement indicating that "freedom of expression . . .

does not protect the continued use of a shared Institute resource

in violation of long-established rules" and providing a timeline

of events justifying the decision to clear the encampment and

arrest the remaining student protestors.

- 14 - On May 17, 2024, plaintiffs filed their amended

complaint, which included new causes of action under the Ku Klux

Klan Act and state common law. MIT moved to dismiss the suit, and

the district court granted the motion. This appeal followed.

II.

We review de novo a district court's decision to dismiss

a lawsuit for failure to state a claim. Douglas, 63 F.4th at 54–

55. Our task is to determine whether plaintiffs' complaint

"contain[s] sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to 'state

a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Id. at 55

(quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). A plausible

claim, in turn, is one in which plaintiffs "plead[] factual content

that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal, 556 U.S.

at 678. In assessing whether plaintiffs have stated a facially

plausible claim to relief, we accept as true the complaint's well-

pleaded factual allegations and draw all reasonable factual

inferences in plaintiffs' favor. McKee v. Cosby, 874 F.3d 54, 58

(1st Cir. 2017). However, we do not credit "conclusory legal

allegations," nor "factual allegations that are 'too meager,

vague, or conclusory to remove the possibility of relief from the

realm of mere conjecture.'" Douglas, 63 F.4th at 55 (quoting Legal

Sea Foods, LLC v. Strathmore Ins. Co., 36 F.4th 29, 33 (1st Cir.

2022)).

- 15 - With this framework in place, we advance to the merits

of plaintiffs' arguments: Did the district court err by dismissing

their claims under Title VI, the Ku Klux Klan Act, and

Massachusetts common law? We consider each claim in turn.

III.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act mandates that "[n]o

person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color,

or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied

the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any

program or activity receiving [f]ederal financial assistance." 42

U.S.C. § 2000d.8 To hold MIT liable for violating this mandate,

plaintiffs pursue a hostile environment, or "harassment," theory

analogous to a theory of liability developed under Title IX. See

Porto v. Town of Tewksbury, 488 F.3d 67, 72–73 (1st Cir. 2007)

(citing Davis ex rel. Lashonda D. v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ.,

526 U.S. 629, 650 (1999)). Under this theory, a school can be

held liable if it was "deliberately indifferent" to "severe,

pervasive and objectively offensive" harassment that "caused the

[plaintiff] to be deprived of educational opportunities or

benefits." D.L. ex rel. M.L. v. Concord Sch. Dist., 86 F.4th 501,

511 (1st Cir. 2023) (citations omitted). Though these cases

involved a sexual harassment claim under Title IX, the standards

8 The parties do not dispute that MIT is subject to Title VI as a "program . . . receiving [f]ederal financial assistance."

- 16 - for sexual harassment under Title IX and racial harassment under

Title VI are often treated as harmonious. See Adams v. Demopolis

City Sch., 80 F.4th 1259, 1273 (11th Cir. 2023) (collecting cases

applying Title IX's deliberate indifference standard to claims of

student-on-student racial harassment under Title VI); see also

Fitzgerald v. Barnstable Sch. Comm., 555 U.S. 246, 258 (2009)

(noting, in a case alleging a violation of Title IX, that "Congress

modeled Title IX after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964");

Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 787 n.1 (1998)

(explaining, in the context of a Title VII sexual harassment claim,

that "[a]lthough racial and sexual harassment will often take

different forms, and standards may not be entirely

interchangeable, we think there is good sense in seeking generally

to harmonize the standards of what amounts to actionable

harassment"). No party suggests that we should proceed otherwise

in evaluating plaintiffs' complaint.

As we will explain, plaintiffs' proposed use of this

theory fails for two independent reasons. First, Plaintiffs'

allegations do not plausibly rise to the level of actionable

harassment required by Title VI. Second, even if the protestors'

conduct as a whole was actionable harassment under Title VI, MIT

is not liable because it was not deliberately indifferent to the

effects of the protests on Jewish and Israeli students. Our

reasoning follows.

- 17 - A.

Our conclusion that plaintiffs have failed to allege

actionable racial harassment consists of three parts. To begin,

most of the conduct about which plaintiffs complain is speech

protected by the First Amendment, and we do not construe Title VI

as requiring a university to quash protected speech. Furthermore,

by gathering together in groups on campus, disrupting campus

tranquility, and impeding travel for many students, the protestors

did not render their speech antisemitic, much less unprotected.

Finally, to the extent that plaintiffs allege isolated incidents

that are plausibly antisemitic, the complaint's allegations are

not sufficiently severe, pervasive, and offensive to constitute

actionable harassment under Title VI. We address each part in

turn.

1.

Because plaintiffs base their claim so heavily on what

the protestors said and wrote, we consider first whether

plaintiffs' proposed application of a harassment claim under

Title VI comports with First Amendment principles.

The Supreme Court has long recognized "a profound

national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues

should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." N.Y. Times Co. v.

Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). By removing "governmental

restraints from the arena of public discussion," the First

- 18 - Amendment places "the decision as to what views shall be voiced

largely into the hands of each of us, . . . in the belief that no

other approach would comport with the premise of individual dignity

and choice upon which our political system rests." McCutcheon v.

Fed. Election Comm'n, 572 U.S. 185, 203 (2014) (alteration in

original) (quotation marks omitted) (quoting Cohen v. California,

403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971)).

In light of this overriding interest in open debate,

speech made in public that is related to matters of public concern

has been given "special protection under the First Amendment" and

thus "cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or

arouses contempt." Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 458 (2011)

(internal quotations omitted) (protecting speech of Westboro

Baptist Church protestors chanting "God Hates You," "Thank God for

Dead Soldiers," and "Priests Rape Boys" at a funeral for a deceased

soldier); see also Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 322 (1988)

(reasoning that "in public debate . . . citizens must tolerate

insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate

'breathing space' to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment"

(quotation marks omitted) (quoting Hustler Mag., Inc. v. Falwell,

485 U.S. 46, 56 (1988))); Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 592

(1969) (reaffirming that "the public expression of ideas may not

be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to

some of their hearers"); Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll.

- 19 - Dist., 605 F.3d 703, 706–708 (9th Cir. 2010) (finding a community

college was not required to restrict a professor's emails related

to immigration, race, and the "preservation of [a] White majority"

because "[t]he Constitution embraces . . . a heated exchange of

views, even (perhaps especially) when they concern sensitive

topics like race").

Similarly, the Supreme Court has long upheld "[t]he

essentiality of freedom in the community of American

universities," warning that "[t]o impose any strait jacket upon

the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would

imperil the future of our Nation." Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354

U.S. 234, 250 (1957) (plurality opinion). A university's

"[a]cademic freedom, though not a specifically enumerated

constitutional right, long has been viewed as a special concern of

the First Amendment." Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S.

265, 312 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.); see also Students for

Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600

U.S. 181, 217 (2023) (recognizing a "tradition of giving a degree

of deference to a university's academic decisions . . . within

constitutionally prescribed limits" (quotation marks omitted)

(quoting Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 328 (2003))). And

"private schools," in particular, "have a First Amendment right to

- 20 - academic freedom." Asociación de Educación Privada de P.R., Inc.

v. García-Padilla, 490 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2007).9

Here, the student protestors engaged in speech on a

matter of public concern10 -- the conflict in Gaza -- while on the

campus of a private university in which they were enrolled. MIT

chose to restrict that speech in part and allow it to continue in

part. Now, plaintiffs seek to hold MIT liable, under a federal

statute, for its failure to curtail that speech even further.

As a private institution, MIT could choose to curtail

political speech by its students without First Amendment scrutiny.

See, e.g., United Bhd. of Carpenters, Local 610 v. Scott, 463 U.S.

825, 831–33 (1983) (explaining that the First Amendment protects

against state interference, not purely private conduct). But MIT's

9 García-Padilla focused on private primary and secondary schools. However, given our reasoning in that case, its pertinent conclusion applies with at least equal force to universities. See García-Padilla, 490 F.3d at 8–9 (finding that the Supreme Court has "invoked academic freedom to protect universities, as academic institutions, against government control"). 10 "Speech deals with matters of public concern when it can 'be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community.'" Snyder, 562 U.S. at 453 (quoting Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 146 (1983)). Speech also qualifies as a matter of public concern "when it 'is a subject of legitimate news interest; that is, a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public.'" Id. (quoting City of San Diego v. Roe, 543 U.S. 77, 83–84 (2004)). The student protestors' expression on a highly publicized conflict in the Middle East meets this standard.

- 21 - authority to decide for itself whether to prohibit certain

political speech is not the issue here. Rather, the question is

whether Title VI required MIT to try to put an end to the

protestors' speech. And requiring MIT to restrict students'

expression merely because those students opposed Israel and

favored the Palestinian cause would infringe upon MIT's freedom to

encourage, rather than suppress, a vigorous exchange of ideas.

See Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S.

819, 836 (1995) ("For the University . . . to cast disapproval on

particular viewpoints of its students risks the suppression of

free speech and creative inquiry in one of the vital centers for

the Nation's intellectual life, its college and university

campuses.").

Using Title VI to compel adherence to a preferred

political viewpoint would also implicate students' First Amendment

freedoms. A law punishing private citizens for expressing

political opinions disfavored by Congress would be subject to "the

most exacting" First Amendment scrutiny. Texas v. Johnson, 491

U.S. 397, 412 (1989); see also Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536,

545–51 (1965) (holding that a state violated the First Amendment

when it prosecuted and convicted a student protestor for

"disturbing the peace" based merely on "hostility" to the views

the protestor expressed). "When the government targets not subject

matter, but particular views taken by speakers on a subject, the

- 22 - violation of the First Amendment is all the more blatant."

Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829 (citing R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S.

377, 391 (1992)). As such, "[t]he government must abstain from

regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the

opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the

restriction." Id. (citing Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local

Educators' Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 46 (1983)). Viewpoint restrictions

are all the more perturbing in the context of speech the government

deems offensive. Cf. Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218, 223 (2017)

(finding trademark restriction prohibiting an Asian American rock

band from registering their band under a derogatory racial term

"offend[ed] a bedrock First Amendment principle" that "speech may

not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend").

Nor can the reactions of an offended audience serve as grounds for

the government to suppress such speech. See id. at 250

(Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment)

("[A] speech burden based on audience reactions is simply

government hostility and intervention in a different guise.").

It makes no difference that, in this case, restriction

of speech comes by way of a civil suit brought by private parties.

Congress cannot skirt First Amendment concerns by passing a law

requiring someone else to punish protected speech. See Nat'l Rifle

Ass'n of Am. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 187, 190 (2024) (explaining

that "viewpoint discrimination is uniquely harmful to a free and

- 23 - democratic society" and holding that "[a] government official

cannot coerce a private party to punish or suppress disfavored

speech on her behalf"). Likewise, the government cannot empower

a private party to punish speech on a matter of public concern

absent unusual circumstances not present here. See Sullivan, 376

U.S. at 283 (limiting "a [s]tate's power to award damages for libel

in actions brought by public officials against critics of their

official conduct"); Phila. Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S.

767, 775 (1986) (explaining that the protections of Sullivan

extend -- albeit to a lesser extent -- to speech on issues of

"public concern," even where the plaintiff is not a public official

or public figure). The government may not permit juries to

"punish" private speech merely because it expresses an "unpopular

opinion," either. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 348–

49 (1974) (limiting the remedies available to private defamation

plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds); see also Sullivan, 376

U.S. at 277 ("What a [s]tate may not constitutionally bring about

by means of a criminal statute is likewise beyond the reach of its

civil law of libel.").

Nor has MIT forfeited its right to make or allow speech

disfavored by the government by receiving federal funds for

programs or activities unrelated to the speech at issue here. See

Agency for Int'l Dev. v. All. for Open Soc'y Int'l, Inc., 570 U.S.

205, 218 (2013) (finding that the First Amendment prohibited a

- 24 - statutory provision that "demand[ed] that [federal] funding

recipients adopt -- as their own -- the Government's view on an

issue of public concern," and thus "by its very nature affect[ed]

'protected conduct outside the scope of the federally funded

program'" (quoting Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 197 (1991))).

In sum, the First Amendment erects safeguards that limit

the ability of the government or private plaintiffs to punish MIT

for not restricting more severely the student protestors'

protected speech.

2.

In view of that anodyne conclusion, we find no surprise

in plaintiffs' agreement that "courts should interpret Title VI to

comport with First Amendment principles." In keeping with that

agreement, plaintiffs do not expressly argue that Title VI can be

used to punish a school for not stifling student speech that the

government itself could not punish. Instead, plaintiffs argue

that much of the protestors' speech fell outside the protection of

the First Amendment -- and thus within the reach of a government

censor -- because the speech was racist (i.e., antisemitic).

This argument poses two nettlesome issues. First, under

what circumstances, if any, can racist speech be punished pursuant

to Title VI without violating the First Amendment?11 See Davis,

11Amicus curiae National Jewish Advocacy Center (but not plaintiffs) also suggests that calls for "intifada" or chants of

- 25 - 526 U.S. at 667–68 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (reviewing the

"difficult [First Amendment] problems raised by university speech

codes designed to deal with peer . . . harassment"); Rodriguez,

605 F.3d at 708 ("There is no categorical 'harassment exception'

to the First Amendment's free speech clause." (quoting Saxe v.

State Coll. Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 204 (3d Cir. 2001)));

see also Todd E. Pettys, Hostile Learning Environments, the First

Amendment and Public Higher Education, 54 Conn. L. Rev. 1, 37–55

(2022) (analyzing hypothetical scenarios under which a university

may or may not be able to constitutionally restrict speech for

creating a hostile learning environment). Second, even assuming

that some racist speech can constitutionally be punished pursuant

to Title VI, have plaintiffs adequately alleged that the

protestors' expression was racist (i.e., antisemitic)?12 Because

"from the river to the sea" were "true threats" unprotected by the First Amendment. True threats are "statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals." Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003) (plurality opinion). Plaintiffs themselves make no such argument, never claiming that any alleged expression of intent to commit unlawful violence can plausibly be inferred from the complaint's description of the roughly seven months of peaceful protest. 12 For purposes of reviewing plaintiffs' complaint, we assume that antisemitic harassment constitutes actionable racial harassment under Title VI. Cf. Sinai v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 3 F.3d 471, 474 (1st Cir. 1993) (noting in construing 42 U.S.C. § 1982 that the "Jewish/Hebrew" identity has been "defined as a protected race by the Supreme Court") (first citing Saint Francis Coll. v. Al–Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987); and then citing Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615 (1987)).

- 26 - we can decide this appeal without addressing the first issue, we

proceed directly to the second.

To suggest that the protestors as a group were guilty of

antisemitism, plaintiffs point to two categories of expression by

protestors: the chants, emails, and signs that formed the general

thrust of the protestors' message; and the gatherings that impeded

movement on MIT's campus. We consider each category, beginning

with the verbal and written messages that focused and spread the

protestors' views.

a.

The sordid history of antisemitism provides a litany of

epithets and tropes widely understood as expressions of religious

or racial animus. As described by plaintiffs, the scores of

protestors holding handmade signs and voicing various chants

eschewed those epithets and tropes, directing their ire instead at

the Israeli state and its treatment of Palestinians.

To support their claim of antisemitism, plaintiffs point

to the protestors' opposition to Zionism, which they argue is

inherently antisemitic. "Zionism," plaintiffs explain, "is the

belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their

ancestral homeland of Israel." Plaintiffs argue that because "most

Jews" see Zionism as "a key component of their Jewish ethnic and

ancestral identity," "'anti-Zionism' is . . . antisemitism." In

plaintiffs' view, speech is anti-Zionist, and therefore

- 27 - antisemitic, if it "oppose[s] Jewish self-determination in the

State of Israel"; if it "claim[s] that the existence of a State of

Israel is a racist endeavor"; if it "requir[es] of [Israel] a

behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation";

and if it "draw[s] comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to

that of the Nazis." Under this framework, plaintiffs also treat

as antisemitic any criticism of Israel's conduct in Gaza, any

suggestion that violence by Palestinians can be understood as

resistance to colonial rule and Israeli expansion, and any

implication that Palestinians should govern -- or even simply be

"free" -- in all of Palestine (i.e., "from the river to the sea").

Plaintiffs are entitled to their own interpretive lens

equating anti-Zionism (as they define it) and antisemitism. But

it is another matter altogether to insist that others must be bound

by plaintiffs' view. Plaintiffs' equation finds no consensus

support in dictionary definitions.13 Nor does a review of the

13 Compare Anti-Semitism, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antisemitism [https://perma.cc/Q32E-YSN7] (last visited Oct. 14, 2025) (defining antisemitism as "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group"), with Anti- Zionism, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/anti-Zionism [https://perma.cc/KF59-N2VC] (last visited Oct. 14, 2025) (defining anti-Zionism as "opposition to the establishment or support of the state of Israel: opposition to Zionism"), and Zionism, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/Zionism [https://perma.cc/9BQQ-RTWD] (last visited Oct. 14, 2025) (defining Zionism as "an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or

- 28 - academic literature point to any consensus that criticism of

Zionism is antisemitic.14 And we do not find it dispositive that

the United States Department of State has defined antisemitism as

"[d]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,

e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a

racist endeavor." Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and

Combat Antisemitism, Defining Antisemitism, U.S. Dep't of State

https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism

religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel"). 14 See, e.g., Itamar Mann & Lihi Yona, Defending Jews from the Definition of Antisemitism, 71 UCLA L. Rev. 1150, 1150, 1155 (2024) (arguing that the conflation of "sharp criticism of Israel" with antisemitism produces "a narrowing of Jewish identity and a delegitimization of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish communities"); Frederick P. Schaffer, Title VI, Anti-Semitism, and the Problem of Compliance, 46 J. Coll. & U.L. 71, 77 (2021) (observing that "arguments about Zionism and Israel are political arguments that are not logically connected to anti-Semitism," but "criticism of Israeli policy . . . can be expressed in ways that indicate an underlying anti-Jewish animus or that help create an environment conducive to anti-Semitism"); Note, Wielding Antidiscrimination Law to Suppress the Movement for Palestinian Rights, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1360, 1373, 1376 (2020) (arguing that "Zionism does not reflect the views of all Jewish people" and "equating anti-Zionism (a political ideology that opposes Jewish ethno-nationalism) with anti-Semitism (anti-Jewish animus) requires a logical leap that defeats finding direct evidence of religious discrimination"); Derek Penslar, Who's Afraid of Defining Antisemitism?, 6 Antisemitism Stud. 133, 136 (2022) (contending that "[a]lternatives to sovereign Jewish statehood . . . are not antisemitic," and observing that even if antisemitism is defined to permit "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country," "separatists have long called for . . . dissolution" of countries like Canada and Spain, and some people have labeled the United States "structurally racist").

- 29 - [https://perma.cc/2KZF-TRBY] (last visited Sept. 29, 2025). As

the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized, "new categories of

unprotected speech may not be added to the list by a legislature

that concludes certain speech is too harmful to be tolerated."

Brown v. Ent. Merchs. Ass'n, 564 U.S. 786, 791 (2011) (citing

United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 469–472 (2010)).

This absence of consensus reflects ongoing debate as to

the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism -- debate

that our constitutional scheme resolves through discourse, not

judicial fiat. Indeed, the debate on occasion has been formal and

high profile. See, e.g., Munk Debate on Anti-Zionism, Munk Debates

(June 17, 2024), https://munkdebates.com/debates/munk-debate-on-

anti-zionism [https://perma.cc/9MQ6-Y2EK] (debating the

proposition that "anti-Zionism is antisemitism"); Anti-Zionism is

Anti-Semitism, Intelligence Squared (June 20, 2019),

https://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/anti-zionism-is-anti-

semitism [https://perma.cc/28M6-7XGS] (same). We decline to

interpret Title VI as arming either side of that debate with the

powers of a censor.

MIT also had to contend with the inverse of plaintiffs'

contention: that Muslim and Palestinian students could, by similar

logic, claim that expressing support for Israel's actions in the

West Bank and Gaza was Islamophobic or anti-Arab. Indeed,

plaintiffs' complaint cites a faculty note arguing that MIT's

- 30 - response to the campus conflict manifested racism against Arab and

Muslim students. We struggle to imagine how a university faced

with such conflicting views could plausibly eliminate all

unwelcome speech without quashing all speech concerning the

conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, particularly

because -- as MIT's president Kornbluth observed in a statement

cited by plaintiffs -- MIT's community included both "people who

lost friends and family to the brutal terror attack of October 7,

and people with friends and family currently in mortal danger in

Rafah." Cf. Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 831 ("[E]xclusion of several

views on [a] problem is just as offensive to the First Amendment

as exclusion of only one.").

This is not to say that anti-Zionism is never wielded as

a tool of the antisemite. See Gartenberg v. Cooper Union for the

Advancement of Sci. & Art, 765 F. Supp. 3d 245, 269 (S.D.N.Y. 2025)

(finding that "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"

graffiti on a bathroom stall that was "made to resemble the

stylized font commonly associated with Hitler's Mein Kampf" could

be used, among other evidence, to show antisemitic motivation).

It is to say, instead, that one person does not lose the right to

express a political opinion on a matter of public concern merely

because another who expresses the same view does so for condemnable

reasons. One individual might criticize a government program as

an inefficient use of taxpayer resources; another might criticize

- 31 - the program because of hostility toward its beneficiaries on the

basis of their race or religion. The latter individual's view,

while reprehensible, could not justify restricting the former

individual's speech, nor imposing a categorical ban on criticism

of the program. See NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S.

886, 915–20 (1982) (holding that civil rights protestors did not

forfeit their First Amendment rights merely because certain group

members' conduct exceeded the scope of constitutional

protections); cf. Black, 538 U.S. at 365 ("The act of burning a

cross may mean that a person is engaging in constitutionally

proscribable intimidation. But that same act may mean only that

the person is engaged in core political speech."). Nor can the

possibility that antisemitism motivates one speaker's anti-Israel

speech justify assuming that all criticism of Israel or advocacy

for Palestinian sovereignty is motivated by antisemitism. We

therefore reject plaintiffs' claimed right to stifle anti-Zionist

speech by labeling it inherently antisemitic.

Nor do plaintiffs allege facts that, if true, would

otherwise permit the inference that in these specific

circumstances the protestors' strident criticisms of Israel were

driven by antisemitism. Without such an inference, the protestors'

speech cannot constitute racial harassment for Title VI purposes.

See Goodman v. Bowdoin Coll., 380 F.3d 33, 43 (1st Cir. 2004)

(observing that "racial animus" is "a necessary component of . . .

- 32 - claims under" Title VI); Doe v. Brown Univ., 43 F.4th 195, 208

(1st Cir. 2022) ("To succeed on his race-based claims, [plaintiff]

must show, among other things, that [defendant] acted with

discriminatory intent."). Here, plaintiffs proffer only

conclusory allegations of antisemitic animus that are "not

entitled to be assumed true." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680–81 (rejecting

as conclusory the allegation that officials "adopted a policy

'"because of," not merely "in spite of," its adverse effects upon

an identifiable group'" (quoting Pers. Admin'r of Mass. v. Feeney,

442 U.S. 256, 279 (1979))). Plaintiffs allege no facts plausibly

establishing that the protestors, as a group, opposed Israeli

actions in Gaza or supported the Palestinian cause because of

antisemitic animus. Nor do plaintiffs allege facts plausibly

showing that the protestors as a group shared plaintiffs' view

that anti-Zionism was inherently antisemitic.

We also reject plaintiffs' implicit contention that the

choice to criticize Israel's actions in Gaza -- rather than, for

example, choosing to criticize some other alleged atrocity

elsewhere in the world -- necessarily manifests antisemitism.

Political advocacy, by its nature, involves a choice to focus on

certain issues or causes over others. Title VI does not preclude

the protestors, U.S. university students, from responding to the

headlines by choosing Israel as their target, particularly given

the protestors' perception of the significant role played by the

- 33 - United States and U.S.-supplied arms in the conflict between

Israelis and Palestinians. Cf. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty.

Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 514 (1969) (upholding students' rights

to "exhibit their disapproval of the Vietnam hostilities and their

advocacy of a truce, to make their views known, and . . . to

influence others to adopt them").

Finally, plaintiffs point to the fraught subject of

genocide. First, plaintiffs claim that accusing Israel of

committing genocide against Palestinians is antisemitic. But even

prominent Israelis have lodged the same accusation. See, e.g.,

Omer Bartov, Opinion, I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I

See It., N.Y. Times (July 15, 2025),

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-

holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html [https://perma.cc/P9GM-

3RRX]. Second, plaintiffs claim in their brief that some

protestors called for the genocide of the Jewish people. But there

are no factual allegations supporting this claim. Rather,

plaintiffs say that we should construe chants of "from the river

to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "intifada revolution" as

calls to wipe out the Jewish people as such. But neither slogan

says as much on its face, nor do plaintiffs allege facts suggesting

that either chant was commonly so construed by the protestors. So

plaintiffs must again rely on a theory that they can dictate the

interpretation of the protestors' speech in order to suppress it,

- 34 - without any facts suggesting that the protestors were using these

slogans in the way plaintiffs claim.

In reviewing these claims, our role is not to approve or

disapprove of the protestors' strident advocacy, nor of the ideas

they so vigorously expressed. We do not question the anguish

plaintiffs felt at hearing a few of their peers justify the

October 7 massacre or deny Israel the right to defend itself. But

our Constitution bars the government from forcing a private

university to prohibit students from voicing vehement support for,

or opposition to, the policies and conduct of the United States

and its allies. For these reasons, we decline plaintiffs'

invitation to hold that the protestors' speech constituted

antisemitic harassment actionable under Title VI merely because it

was stridently pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist.

b.

Trying a different approach to support their claim that

the protests constituted antisemitic harassment, plaintiffs also

point to the protestors' disruptive physical presence. This

presence first impeded travel across and within MIT's campus during

seven days of protest spread out over approximately five months,

and later included a three-week encampment by a small group of

students. For the most part, even as alleged by plaintiffs, these

impediments rendered travel more difficult for all students and

prevented all students from using Kresge Lawn as they might

- 35 - otherwise have planned -- including, as plaintiffs describe, for

a planned celebration of the state of Israel.

Certainly, the protests may have interfered with campus

life and the university's educational mission in a way that could

have disappointed many students (and their parents). But our

Title VI focus is not on how the protests affected students

generally. Rather, we train our focus only on the extent to which

the protests might have harassed Jewish students as such. See

Davis, 526 U.S. at 651 (explaining that to plead deliberate

indifference, a plaintiff must plausibly allege that she was

"deprived . . . of an educational opportunity on the basis of" her

protected characteristic). We recognize that because the

encampment, in particular, took place across from Hillel, its

impact on Jewish students was plausibly heightened. Indeed,

plaintiffs allege that they moved a scheduled Passover seder "to

an alternate location" because MIT had not yet cleared the

encampment and thus students did not feel comfortable attending

the seder at Hillel. But plaintiffs allege no facts to plausibly

indicate that the protestors chose Kresge Lawn for their encampment

because of its proximity to Hillel rather than for its prominent

location and preferred terrain for tents.

We are also unpersuaded by plaintiffs' position that the

pro-Palestinian students surrendered some of their First Amendment

rights by gathering together, chanting, and holding signs. "[B]y

- 36 - collective effort individuals can make their views known, when,

individually, their voices would be faint or lost." Citizens

Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley, 454 U.S. 290, 294 (1981).

This practice is "deeply embedded in the American political

process." Id.; see Boos, 485 U.S. at 318 (emphasizing that the

display of signs criticizing foreign governments are "at the core

of the First Amendment" and constitute "classically political

speech"); see also Claiborne Hardware, 458 U.S. at 910 (1982)

("Speech does not lose its protected character, however, simply

because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.").

For these reasons, we conclude that plaintiffs have

failed to plausibly allege facts showing that the disruptive

protests and campsite gatherings were antisemitic in message or

purpose. Rather, they were time-worn methods of grabbing more

attention for the broadcast of the protestors' political views.

3.

That being said, the cacophony of protests and ensuing debates

over the course of seven months, as alleged, plausibly spun off

several isolated incidents of antisemitism. Plaintiffs allege

that student protestors specifically blocked Plaintiff Boukin from

entering Lobby 7 on one occasion while a protest was underway

"because she was Jewish," while permitting other students and

faculty to cross. They also allege Boukin was denied access to

the Kresge Lawn encampment area on one occasion "because she was

- 37 - Jewish," while others were allowed to enter. One protestor on

October 19, 2023, seemed to presume that Plaintiff Meyers bore

responsibility for the actions of the Israeli government because

her ancestors were Jewish. MIT Coalition Against Apartheid members

allegedly "heckled" another individual "because he was visibly

Jewish." Plaintiffs also allege that on December 6, 2023, an

Israeli-American speaker urged listeners to "go to MIT Hillel and

confront MIT's Jewish students there about Gaza,"15 and that on one

occasion a graduate student authored a tweet equating Jews with

Nazis.16 So although we find no basis for insisting that MIT view

the thrust of the protests themselves or even a large subset of

the protestors as antisemitic, we agree that plaintiffs allege a

handful of incidents, occurring over the course of seven months,

that any thoughtful person would regard as antisemitic -- that is,

as confronting Jewish students "on the ground," 42 U.S.C. § 2000d,

that they were Jewish.17

15 In reviewing the link to a video of the speaker's talk, which plaintiffs supplied in their complaint and thereby incorporated by reference, we were unable to identify this statement. 16 The allegation to which plaintiffs cite does not allege what the student actually said, nor that plaintiffs themselves were even aware of the tweet. 17 We do not, however, credit plaintiffs' conclusory assertions that other scattered speech and conduct manifested antisemitism: for example, a book group discussing a controversial memoir, at which an MIT staff member "invited students to sympathize" with a Palestinian author (an unremarkable invitation for any curious reader), or an event at which an MIT staff member

- 38 - That these incidents were few in number and, even then,

not all trained on any plaintiff raises the question of whether

the antisemitic conduct that plaintiffs plausibly allege was

"severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive." Davis, 526 U.S.

at 633. MIT makes a convincing case that it was not. Indeed, it

is hard to see how plaintiffs' allegations could plausibly show

that these antisemitic incidents were so pervasive and disruptive

as to "effectively bar the victim[s'] access to an educational

opportunity or benefit." Id. As the Supreme Court has emphasized

in the analogous Title IX context, "the [harassing] behavior

[must] be serious enough to have the systemic effect of denying

the victim equal access to an educational program or activity."

Id. at 652 (emphasis added). The requirement that the deprivation

of educational access be systemic is key: "Although, in theory,

a single instance of sufficiently severe one-on-one peer

harassment could be said to have such an effect," the Supreme Court

has deemed it "unlikely that Congress would have thought such

behavior sufficient to rise to this level." Id. at 652–53.

Additionally, that the alleged incidents were

perpetrated by other students or by guest speakers further

undermines any inference of severe or pervasive harassment. "The

expressed her view that Palestinians were being "wrongly subjugated and oppressed by white European colonizers" and asked attendees if they were Kosher in order to give them a dessert that matched their dietary needs.

- 39 - relationship between the harasser and the victim necessarily

affects the extent to which the misconduct can be said to breach"

Title VI. Id. at 653. "Peer harassment, in particular, is less

likely to satisfy these requirements than is teacher-student

harassment." Id. In light of these considerations and without

more instances of such conduct, the alleged incidents fall short

of the "systemic" deprivation of educational opportunities and

benefits required by Davis.

In any event, plaintiffs fail to plausibly allege that

MIT had any knowledge of these isolated events. Liability under

Title VI requires that an "'appropriate person' . . . with

authority to take corrective action to end the harassment" have

"actual knowledge" of the offending conduct. Grace v. Bd. of Trs.,

Brooke E. Bos., 85 F.4th 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2023) (quoting Santiago

v. Puerto Rico, 655 F.3d 61, 74 (1st Cir. 2011)); see also Davis,

526 U.S. at 650 (requiring that a recipient of federal funding

have "actual knowledge" of harassment to be held liable under

Title IX). Although MIT was clearly aware of the protests

generally, plaintiffs do not allege that they or others brought

the specific, identified incidents of antisemitism to the

attention of MIT officials who could take corrective action.

Given the foregoing findings, plaintiffs' Title VI

claims fail even assuming that Title VI compels a private

university to take reasonable steps to shield its students from

- 40 - racist speech per se. The disruptive political protests

sympathetic to Palestinian views of the conflict with Israel were

not, by and large, antisemitic. And to the extent that the

complaint alleges any incidents that were plausibly antisemitic

and targeted at one or more plaintiffs, such incidents were not

sufficiently severe and pervasive to constitute actionable

harassment; furthermore, the complaint is bereft of any allegation

that appropriate MIT officials were made aware of such incidents

or who the perpetrators were. For these reasons alone, we can

affirm the dismissal of plaintiffs' Title VI claim.

Although the foregoing analysis suffices to dispose of

plaintiffs' Title VI claim, for the sake of completeness, we

proceed to examine the alternative grounds adopted by the district

court -- that even if the protests are viewed as the type of

harassment proscribed by Title VI, MIT was not deliberately

indifferent. For the following reasons, we agree with the district

court's reasoning.

This is not a case in which plaintiffs claim their school

took no action in response to reported harassment. See Grace, 85

F.4th at 12–14 (finding a triable issue as to deliberate

indifference where a jury could conclude that school officials

took no remedial measures for more than a year despite reports

that students repeatedly targeted their classmate with homophobic

- 41 - epithets); Doe v. Pawtucket Sch. Dep't, 969 F.3d 1, 7–8, 10, 11

(1st Cir. 2020) (vacating dismissal of complaint where plaintiff

could plausibly show that the school took no action whatsoever

upon learning plaintiff had been raped by another student in a

school bathroom).

Rather, plaintiffs claim that MIT "dragged its feet,"

"took only minimal action," and "fail[ed] to discipline" student

protestors so as to effectively deter their conduct. But as our

caselaw makes clear, Title VI does not subject a private entity to

damages liability merely because its response did not deter or

eradicate the alleged peer harassment. See Fitzgerald v.

Barnstable Sch. Comm., 504 F.3d 165, 175 (1st Cir. 2007), rev'd on

other grounds, 555 U.S. 246 (2009) ("To avoid Title IX liability,

an educational institution must act reasonably to prevent future

harassment; it need not succeed in doing so."); Davis, 526 U.S. at

648 (explaining that schools need not "purg[e] their schools of

actionable peer harassment" to avoid suit under Title IX). A

university is deliberately indifferent under Title VI only if its

response to known harassment is "so lax, so misdirected, or so

poorly executed as to be clearly unreasonable under the known

circumstances." D.L., 86 F.4th at 511 (quoting Fitzgerald, 504

F.3d at 175). As we will explain, MIT's response to the political

divide among its students was far from "clearly unreasonable."

- 42 - As the protest gatherings occurred over the course of

seven months, culminating in the Kresge Lawn encampment, MIT took

an escalating series of actions aimed at calming the turmoil

without violence. Following the first student protests after the

October 7 attack, MIT revised its campus expression rules and

policies and, on November 8, 2023, issued a letter "announcing

procedures for accelerated action on reports of harassment and

discrimination." During the rally in Lobby 7 on November 9, 2023,

MIT met with "leaders of the Jewish community." It instructed

protestors to vacate the area by a set time or face discipline.

It then announced that it would suspend from non-academic

activities students who remained after that deadline.

MIT then formed a Standing Together Against Hate

initiative to combat antisemitism on campus, hosting an event about

antisemitism on February 12, 2024. When the MIT Coalition Against

Apartheid protested that event via an "emergency rally" that

violated MIT rules, MIT suspended the organization's student-group

privileges. And when the Kresge Lawn encampment was installed in

late April 2024, MIT escalated its suppressive efforts by

prohibiting evening noise and installing a 24-hour police

presence. On April 27, President Kornbluth called for a peaceful

end to the encampment. When the student protestors continued the

encampment and outside community members began to join, MIT placed

high fencing around the encampment to contain it. And,

- 43 - significantly, when MIT first attempted to impose a deadline for

the encampment to cease, a flood of new arrivals, many from outside

MIT, knocked down and demolished the safety fencing, further

swelling the encampment. As tensions rose, MIT suspended students

following unruly protests, and nine protestors were arrested for

blocking the Stata Center garage. Finally, MIT managed to clear

the encampment successfully on May 10, 2024, and it had the

remaining ten protestors arrested.

Fair-minded persons might question whether MIT acted

quickly and decisively enough.18 Other fair-minded persons might

be sympathetic to a university's concern that it not

counterproductively aggravate the situation, as might have

occurred on May 6 when the university attempted to clear the

encampment and instead sparked a surge that overwhelmed the

barricade. We need to keep in mind, too, the nature of the activity

that plaintiffs say MIT should have eliminated more quickly. Even

if we accept plaintiffs' position that some conduct of some

18 Plaintiffs also point to two letters received by MIT: one from a member of Congress that plaintiffs describe as "urg[ing]" President Kornbluth "to take more proactive measures to ensure the safety and inclusion of Jewish students on MIT's campus," and another from Department of Education "reminding schools of their obligations under Title VI." Although plaintiffs rely on these letters to bolster their complaint, the issue is not whether MIT was aware of its obligations -- we assume that it was -- but rather whether MIT was deliberately indifferent to antisemitic harassment constituting a Title VI violation.

- 44 - protestors was antisemitic, that would not provide a Title VI

pretext for requiring MIT to eliminate the protests entirely. In

that respect, by managing the situation so as to avoid escalation

and violence, MIT was much more effective than plaintiffs claim.

All in all, the complaint simply fails to allege facts plausibly

supporting a claim of deliberate indifference to antisemitic

harassment.

Nor are we persuaded by plaintiffs' theory that the

university's response was "clearly unreasonable" because it

"failed to take additional reasonable measures after it learned

that its initial remedies were ineffective," Grace, 85 F.4th at 11

(quoting Porto, 488 F.3d at 73-74), or because its strategies

"produced no results," Vance v. Spencer Cnty. Pub. Sch. Dist., 231

F.3d 253, 262 (6th Cir. 2000). To the contrary, any reasonable

school administrator in MIT's position could have reasonably

surmised that its progressively evolving responses prevented the

on-campus conflict from exploding into real violence between

October 2023 and May 2024. Based on plaintiffs' allegations, we

are confident that, as the district court ably explained, MIT's

handling of this challenging situation was simply not indifferent.

As we have often repeated, Title VI does not require

schools to "craft perfect solutions," D.L., 86 F.4th at 511

(quoting Fitzgerald, 504 F.3d at 174), nor does it entitle students

to their preferred "remedial demands," Davis, 526 U.S. at 648. It

- 45 - simply requires that a school's response to known harassment not

be "clearly unreasonable." Id. at 649. Plaintiffs do not allege

facts plausibly indicating that MIT's course of action fell below

that standard. See D.L., 86 F.4th at 514 (affirming that in

assessing a school's response to alleged harassment, "perfection

is not the test").19

We therefore agree with the district court that even

were we to accept plaintiffs' view of the protests as manifesting

a degree and form of antisemitism that could be viewed as

actionable harassment under Title VI, MIT's reaction was not

clearly unreasonable. For that reason -- independent of our

conclusion as to the nature of the student protestors' speech and

conduct -- plaintiffs' challenge to the dismissal of their Title VI

claim fails.

IV.

Plaintiffs next claim that MIT violated the Ku Klux Klan

Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1986, by knowingly failing to prevent a conspiracy

19Nor does the unnamed MIT staff member's incorrect suggestion that Jewish students were "not members of a protected class" make MIT's otherwise reasonable handling of the campus conflict clearly unreasonable. In a different setting, the remark might have implied indifference to complaints of antisemitism if made by a senior official "with authority to take corrective action." Grace, 85 F.4th at 11. But here, as we have described, plaintiffs' allegations make clear that senior university administrators were not indifferent, and plaintiffs allege no facts suggesting that those decisionmakers agreed with the unnamed staff member's statement.

- 46 - by the student protestors to deprive Jewish and Israeli students

of their civil rights. To state a claim under § 1986, a plaintiff

first must plausibly plead a conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3).

Gattineri v. Town of Lynnfield, 58 F.4th 512, 516 (1st Cir. 2023).

And to state a claim under § 1985(3), a plaintiff must plausibly

allege:

(1) a conspiracy, (2) a conspiratorial purpose to deprive a class of persons, directly or indirectly, of the equal protection of the laws or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws, (3) an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, and (4) either (a) an injury to person or property, or (b) a deprivation of a constitutionally protected right or privilege.

Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1996). Furthermore,

a plaintiff may recover "only when the conspiratorial conduct of

which he complains is propelled by 'some racial, or perhaps

otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus.'" Id.

(quoting Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 102 (1971)).

The district court dismissed plaintiffs' claim because

it found that they failed to plead a conspiratorial agreement.

Specifically, it held that plaintiffs failed to raise a plausible

inference that the student protestors acted in concert "at least

in part for the very purpose" of depriving plaintiffs of their

civil rights. See Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 506

U.S. 263, 276 (1993)). This was error, plaintiffs argue, because

- 47 - their allegations give rise to a plausible inference that the

student activists' "conscious objective" was the impairment of

Jewish and Israeli students' rights to be free from racial violence

under the Thirteenth Amendment, to make and enforce contracts under

42 U.S.C. § 1981, and to hold real and personal property under 42

U.S.C. § 1982.

For purposes of this appeal, we assume without deciding

that violations of §§ 1981 and 1982 can form the basis of an

unlawful conspiracy under § 1985(3). But see Great Am. Fed. Sav.

& Loan Ass'n v. Novotny, 442 U.S. 366, 378 (1979) ("[D]eprivation

of a right created by Title VII cannot be the basis of a cause of

action under § 1985(3)."); Jimenez v. WellStar Health Sys., 596

F.3d 1304, 1312 (11th Cir. 2010) (extending that logic to bar

claims based on violations of § 1981); see also Brown v. Philip

Morris Inc., 250 F.3d 789, 806 (3d Cir. 2001) (observing that

"[t]he great weight of precedential authority . . . does not

suggest that §§ 1981 or 1982 claims in general may form the basis

of a § 1985(3) action"); Pirghaibi v. Moss, 175 F. App'x 120, 122

(9th Cir. 2006) (noting that "whether violations of sections 1981

and 1982 [could] serve as the basis for a § 1985(3) claim" was an

"uncertain proposition under Supreme Court precedent"). We need

not reach this issue because, for the reasons explained below, we

hold that plaintiffs failed to plead that the student activist

groups conspired "for the very purpose" of depriving plaintiffs of

- 48 - their constitutional right to be free from racial violence, their

contractual rights, or their property rights. Bray, 506 U.S. at

276.

We begin with plaintiffs' claim that the MIT Coalition

Against Apartheid and other MIT student groups conspired to engage

in "racially and ethnically motivated violence against Jews and

Israelis in contravention of the Thirteenth Amendment." But

plaintiffs have supplied no facts that, if proven, could justify

recovery on this theory. See Aulson, 83 F.3d at 3–7 (affirming

dismissal for failure to state a claim where complaint failed to

plausibly allege discriminatory animus). Plaintiffs' complaint

alleged two acts of arguable "violence" against Jewish or Israeli

students: a protestor, who plaintiffs do not allege was even

affiliated with MIT or belonged to the challenged student groups,

raising a bike tire at a passing Jewish student; and a single,

unnamed protestor shoving a Jewish student who was filming the

protest. Plaintiffs' complaint did not allege that these two

incidents were authorized, endorsed, or planned by any student

group, let alone that they were the purpose of the protests. To

imagine that these two altercations were the "conscious objective"

of protests coordinated, as plaintiffs allege, by multiple groups

and involving dozens of students overly strains credulity, as does

the suggestion that only these two incidents would have occurred

if "racially and ethnically motivated violence" were the explicit

- 49 - purpose of the protests. And for the reasons we have already

expressed, we are not persuaded by plaintiffs' assertion that the

student protestors' speech itself constituted "serious racial

violence" under the Thirteenth Amendment. Although we must draw

reasonable factual inferences in plaintiffs' favor at this stage,

we need not credit "bald assertions, unsupportable conclusions,

periphrastic circumlocutions, and the like." Aulson, 83 F.3d at

3; see Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 ("While legal conclusions can provide

the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual

allegations.").

Plaintiffs' next theory is that the purpose of the

alleged conspiracy between the student groups was to interfere

with Jewish and Israeli students' property and contract rights by

forcing them to "endure[] chants that [were] overtly antisemitic"

and to be "subjected to walkouts," "doxed," "kicked out of study

groups," and "prevented from entering public areas of campus"

because they were Jewish or Israeli.20 As we have explained above,

little of what occurred can be deemed antisemitic merely because

plaintiffs declare it to be so, and plaintiffs' allegations offer

20 Plaintiffs also claim that their property rights were violated when a man "urinated on [Hillel] after being provoked at" a MIT Coalition Against Apartheid protest. However, the complaint does not allege that the man was in any way affiliated with MIT or the student groups it accuses of conspiracy, and the report plaintiffs attached to their complaint indicates that the man was someone with "paranoid beliefs" who had "nothing to do with MIT."

- 50 - no facts to plausibly suggest that the protestors agreed to target

Jewish students, as opposed to agreeing to demand that the

university adopt the activists' position regarding the conflict

between Israelis and Palestinians.

In lieu of pointing to any evidence of the student

groups' purpose, plaintiffs instead catalogue the harms suffered

by Jewish and Israeli students. They argue that "the co-

conspirators' actions aimed to impair the rights of Jews and

Israelis because[] they repeatedly impaired their contractual

rights . . . and[] violated their property rights." But "[a]

conspiracy is not 'for the purpose' of denying equal protection

simply because it has an effect on a protected right." Bray, 506

U.S. at 275. In short, plaintiffs' conclusory assertions fail to

state a claim that impairing the rights of Jewish students was

among the student protestors' "conscious objective[s]." Bray, 506

U.S. at 275–76; see Alston v. Spiegel, 988 F.3d 564, 577–78 (1st

Cir. 2021) (observing that inferences "are not infinitely

elastic").

Plaintiffs' theory is particularly implausible given the

joint statements from the student groups to which it points as

evidence of a conspiracy. Those statements state plainly the

protestors' purported goals: to pressure MIT to "divest" from

Israel and to cease "sponsored research for the Israeli Occupation

Forces," to express "solidarity with Columbia students" who were

- 51 - "calling for divestment," to "speak out" to "stop the genocide"

and "defend Palestine," and to express their shared desire for a

"permanent ceasefire in Gaza." We need not, of course, take the

protestors' word for it. But where plaintiffs have failed to

adduce any facts suggesting a purpose beyond or behind these stated

goals, "dismissal is proper." Alston, 988 F.3d at 571; see Iqbal,

556 U.S. at 681 (holding that, while plaintiffs' allegations were

"consistent with" a discriminatory purpose, they did not

"plausibly establish this purpose" given "more likely

explanations").

All told, plaintiffs have failed to state a claim of

conspiracy under § 1985(3), and thus their § 1986 claim must fail.

Plaintiffs' final claims are that MIT is liable under

Massachusetts law for breaching its contracts with Jewish and

Israeli students by failing to uphold various policies, and for

negligently failing to protect its students from antisemitic

harassment. After dismissing plaintiffs' federal claims, the

district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over

plaintiffs' state-law claims. Because we agree that plaintiffs

failed to state a federal claim, we affirm the dismissal without

prejudice of plaintiffs' state-law claims. See Rodriguez v. Doral

Mortg. Corp., 57 F.3d 1168, 1177 (1st Cir. 1995) ("As a general

principle, the unfavorable disposition of a plaintiff's federal

- 52 - claims at the early stages of a suit, well before the commencement

of trial, will trigger the dismissal without prejudice of any

supplemental state-law claims.").

VI.

One loose end remains. Plaintiffs contend that the

district court abused its discretion by denying plaintiffs leave

to amend their amended complaint yet again after it was found

lacking. The district court's final order made no mention of

plaintiffs' request for leave to amend, which -- plaintiffs

argue -- means there was "no adequate basis for the court's

decision." See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962)

("[O]utright refusal to grant the leave [to amend] without any

justifying reason appearing for the denial . . . is merely abuse

of [a district court's] discretion . . . "); Fed. R. Civ.

P. 15(a)(2) ("The court should freely give leave [to amend a

pleading] when justice so requires.").

It is unsurprising that the district court did not grant

plaintiffs the leave they desired, because plaintiffs never moved

to amend their complaint any further. Instead, plaintiffs added

a single sentence in their memorandum of law opposing MIT's motion

to dismiss: "To the extent the Court deems any of Plaintiffs'

allegations inadequate, Plaintiffs request permission to amend

their complaint." This cursory mention, presented not as a motion

but embedded in some other document, does not require a district

- 53 - court's express response under our caselaw. "It is within the

court's discretion to deny leave to amend implicitly by not

addressing the request when leave is requested informally in a

brief filed in opposition to a motion to dismiss." Fire & Police

Pension Ass'n of Colo. v. Abiomed, Inc., 778 F.3d 228, 247 (1st

Cir. 2015) (quoting Joblove v. Barr Labs, Inc., 466 F.3d 187, 220

(2d Cir. 2006), abrogated on other grounds by, F.T.C. v. Actavis,

Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013)). Furthermore, this court has specified

that a statement that "in the event that the Court finds that the

Amended Complaint fails to state a claim, Plaintiff requests leave

to replead," contained within an opposition to defendants' motion

to dismiss, does not constitute a motion for leave to amend under

Rule 15(a). Gray v. Evercore Restructuring L.L.C., 544 F.3d 320,

327 (1st Cir. 2008). Here, as in Gray, plaintiffs "failed to

request leave to amend," and the district court "cannot be faulted

for failing to grant such leave sua sponte." Id. The district

court did not abuse its discretion by declining to grant plaintiffs

an additional opportunity to amend their complaint a second time.

VII.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district

court's order on all counts.21

21 This conclusion moots any need to consider MIT's challenge to the standing of the organizational plaintiff.

- 54 -