The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the University of Massachusetts Amherst in response to a complaint that alleges that the school took months to address the harassment of Palestinian and Arab students.
In the previously unreported civil rights complaint, 18 students said that they have “been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab harassment and discrimination by fellow UMass students, including receiving racial slurs, death threats and in one instance, actually being assaulted.” The result, the students said, was a hostile environment for all Arab and Palestinian students, those perceived to be Palestinian, and their allies on campus. Among the most chilling allegations involves a student yelling “kill all Arabs” at fellow students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.
The complaint, which was filed under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, charges that despite repeated communication to over a dozen administrators and Title IX officials, the school “was extremely slow to take action” and that its stonewalling exacerbated the hostile environment.
The Education Department’s civil rights division, known as OCR, opened its inquiry on April 16, less than two weeks after the legal advocacy group Palestine Legal filed the complaint on behalf of the students. The office will ultimately determine whether or not the school’s handling of the harassment complaints and disciplining of students involved in on-campus protests violated federal civil rights law.
“When you have a complaint that so clearly, and in such detail, lays out the severity of the hostile environment … I think that led OCR to really swiftly open it,” said Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal. “It’s an ongoing environment too.”
The Department of Education declined to comment on the pending investigation, and the university did not respond to a request for comment on the probe or the allegations.
Over the past six months, students across the country have conducted protests, sit-ins, and other demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and for their institutions to divest from Israel’s occupation of Palestine. While universities have largely responded with an iron fist, the Department of Education has been increasingly brought in to investigate civil rights claims. Since October 7, Palestine Legal has filed five complaints with the OCR, including against Northwestern Law and the University of North Carolina. Conversely, pro-Israel groups have used the civil rights law to target students speaking out in support of Palestinian rights.
Tariq Habash, a former political appointee in the Department of Education who resigned in January in protest of President Joe Biden’s policies on the Gaza war, said that universities’ widespread crackdowns against anti-war protests is connected to the discrimination students have complained of.
“This is not how you prevent discrimination. This is how you enable it and how you make it normalized.”
“The condemnation has been so swift against largely peaceful, non-violent anti-war protests that are calling for an end to an ongoing genocide of Palestinians,” Habash said. “They’re arresting faculty who are trying to protect students who are in the middle of prayers. They are suspending students. They are kicking them out of their dorms and throwing their belongings into alleyways — this is not how you create safe, inclusive environments. This is not how you prevent discrimination. This is how you enable it and how you make it normalized.”
Targeted Harassment
The 49-page complaint lays out allegations of harassment going as far back as the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7.
The complaint accuses a student of participating in Students for Justice in Palestine protests and other related off-campus events by making threats such as “Kill all Arabs,” playing sounds of bombs, and trying to hit student protestors with an electric scooter. The student also allegedly intimidated an elderly woman and made racist remarks against Arabs and Palestinians.
Additionally, the complaint mentions receiving hateful messages and threats online from accounts like “@amherstzionwarroom, @UMass_amherst_sjp_watch, @UMass_amherst_zionists, and @UMass_zionists.” These accounts targeted Students for Justice in Palestine members, making derogatory comments about them.
The Equal Opportunity and Access Office at the school found that a student was behind the online accounts. Despite multiple complaints and requests for support from targeted students and their parents, university administrators did not issue any statements condemning the anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab behavior.
The complainants spent significant time compiling evidence against their own school, seeking justice through the Office for Civil Rights. Meanwhile, the university leadership showed solidarity with Israel, participating in events that equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
In October, the university arrested 57 students participating in a sit-in protest calling for the school to end ties with weapons manufacturers involved in Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Despite assurances from the chancellor that the students would not face disciplinary charges, all 57 were later charged with trespassing. The rush to discipline the students, even during final exams, was unprecedented compared to previous protests.
Three students were prevented from studying abroad due to these disciplinary actions, with the decisions allegedly coming from Kalpen Trivedi, a university official. Trivedi’s social media activity, as cited in the complaint, suggested complicity between medical professionals and media outlets with Hamas. During that period, the Israeli military had surrounded the hospital while alleging, without substantial proof, that it was being used as a command center by Hamas.
A screenshot displayed the statement, “They are all Hamas. All grotesquely evil,” with Trivedi unavailable for comment.
The complaint also accused the UMass Police Department of sharing the home addresses of the arrested students, leading to further harassment. Despite requests from parents to remove the addresses from the website, the police department cited state law as the reason for their publication. However, state law only required the addresses to be available as a public record, not necessarily posted online.
The students’ home addresses were eventually taken down from the website on December 5 after several weeks. The police department did not provide a comment on the matter.
Maysoun Batley, one of the students involved in the complaint, stated, “We were fighting like tooth and nail to get them to remove our private addresses off the internet.”
The complaint detailed various interactions between the students, their parents, and university administrators, highlighting a perceived inadequate response from the university.
After a shooting incident involving three Palestinian students in Vermont, a parent expressed frustration to university administrators for not taking active steps to protect their children. The university officials did not respond to the parent’s concerns.
The students recounted feeling unsupported by university administrators and faculty during Zoom meetings held in December, with one professor allegedly criticizing their protests. The professor’s comments were likened to Nazi students shouting down Jewish professors in 1932 Berlin.
Feeling the lack of institutional support, the students sought out protections like anti-harassment or no-contact orders themselves. While some students received mutual no-contact directives in November and others received court-sanctioned harassment prevention orders in March, it took months for these protections to be put in place despite evidence of harassment.
Ruya Hazeyen, another student involved in the complaint, expressed frustration over the delayed response from the university in addressing the harassment incidents. The students felt unsafe as the harassers were still allowed on campus despite their actions.
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