StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, et al. v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. Unlawful discrimination includes “deliberate indifference” to a “hostile environment.” Davis v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 526 U.S. 629 (1999). This case concerns the legal standards for a “hostile environment,” which have long confused and split the lower courts. That confusion has come to a head with the recent explosion of campus antisemitism. As set out in Petitioners’ complaint, Respondent MIT allowed a hostile environment for Jewish students to fester, as roving groups of “protesters” called for violence, physically aggressed Jews, blocked public access, and targeted Jewish spaces. Because MIT failed to take adequate steps to address these realities, its campus devolved into a severely antisemitic environment. The First Circuit affirmed dismissal on the pleadings. Deepening a 5-3-4 circuit split, it held that Petitioners’ allegations of a hostile environment were insufficient because they did not establish that the protesters were motivated by racial “animus.” And it created an independent 3-1 circuit split in holding that, because protesters were engaged in “protected speech,” no hostile environment could be pleaded. App. 15a. The questions presented are: I. Whether the harassers’ subjective discriminatory intent is an element of a hostile environment claim under Title VI. II. Whether the First Amendment bars a plaintiff from pleading a Title VI hostile environment claim based on “protected speech.”