The Volokh Conspiracy
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Court Dismisses Palestinian Muslim Student Activist's Harassment Complaint Against Northwestern Law School, But Discrimination Claim Can Go Forward
The claims stemmed from the student's claim that classmates had harassed her, "doxed" her, and falsely accused her of assault in connection with the protests, and that as an indirect result she lost a job with a major law firm.
From Elagha v. Northwestern Univ., decided Tuesday by Judge Charles Kocoras (N.D. Ill.):
The following facts come from the amended complaint and are presumed true for purposes of this motion. All reasonable inferences are drawn in Elagha's favor.
Plaintiff Yasmeen Elagha … is a Palestinian Muslim woman who wears a hijab. She graduated from Northwestern's Pritzker School of Law … in May 2024 and is currently a licensed attorney practicing in Illinois….
While a law student, Elagha was very active in Pro-Palestinian, anti-war causes and organizations on campus. On or about November 16, 2023, Elagha attended a protest. Several law students followed and recorded Elagha and the other students participating in the protest, even when asked to stop. During the protest, other members of the Northwestern community made threatening remarks about the protesters' status at the university and their future job prospects, saying things like "we know people high up in university" and "good luck getting jobs after this."
Following the protest, pictures and videos of the protestors were shared on social media, including one post by another law student that garnered significant attention and attracted racist and harmful comments. Elagha had her private scholarship status exposed in a tweet by a fellow law student, though it was later deleted.
After the protest, a group of students, including Elagha, met with unknown Northwestern administrators to express their safety concerns and asked the school to issue a statement to promote civility on campus and to hold students accountable for doxing and harassment. {"Doxing" … "involves releasing someone's personal details onto the Internet in an easily accessible form … [and] [i]t may be used to humiliate, intimidate, threaten, or punish the identified individual."} Despite assurances that Northwestern would follow up on the students' concerns, no concrete actions were taken to address the threats or the doxing incidents. Since at least November 2022, Elagha made complaints in writing to Northwestern regarding the harassment and targeting she faced by other students, but Elagha did not receive any protections like other students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds had received.
In November 2022, Elagha filed a report with Northwestern's Office of Civil Rights ("OCR") against fellow law student Anita Kinney after Kinney publicly stated that she was "personally gunning for" Elagha after she sent a school-wide email supporting Palestine. Elagha asked Northwestern to issue a no-contact directive against Kinney as it customarily would have done when requested by students of other races. Northwestern ignored Elagha's request.
Since at least 2023 and 2024, Elagha made numerous complaints and warnings in writing to Northwestern that other students' harassment and targeting put her at risk of losing career opportunities.
On or about November 16, 2023, Elagha again participated in a silent protest held on Northwestern's campus. At this time, Elagha had recently received a job offer from the internationally recognized law firm DLA Piper as an associate in their Fall 2024 class. After the protest, fellow law student Melody Mostow falsely reported to the Northwestern University Police Department ("NUPD") that Elagha assaulted, battered, and harassed her at the protest. NUPD did not contact Elagha and instead posted Mostow's allegations on their website. NUPD failed to remove the false claim from their public database.
After the November 2023 protest, Elagha again filed an OCR report against Kinney, whom she believes encouraged Mostow to make the false report. She asked Northwestern to issue a no-contact directive against Kinney because Kinney began "doxing" Elagha. Northwestern treated Elagha's request differently than other similarly situated students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds and denied Elagha's request. [Again, recall that these are all allegations drawn from the Complaint, not factual findings by the court. -EV]
On or about May 20, 2024, Tony Kinnett, an investigative columnist with the Daily Signal emailed Elagha stating that she "is alleged to have followed/stalked and then assaulted an individual on November 9, 2023" and asked her "Did you follow/stalk Melody Mostow on 11/9/23? Did you assault Melody Mostow on 11/9/23?" Elagha forwarded the reporter's email to the Defendant Deans with the notice that "Now, I am at risk of being defamed with false allegations from Melody Mostow. I can consider my job offer rescinded if this publishes. I need the administration's assistance in immediately shutting this down. The administration must contact the reporter and emphasize that this event is fully fabricated, false, and defamatory." Roth responded on behalf of Northwestern and advised Elagha to refer the reporter to media@northwestern.edu, the official email for requests for comments from Northwestern. Kinnett was provided with the email address.
On or about May 21, 2024, the Daily Signal published an article that Elagha "berated a fellow law student, Melody Mostow for taking photographs of the demonstration" and that "in public comments, Melody Mostow alleged that Yasmeen Elagha pushed her in the back. She filed a police report with Northwestern University Police about the incident involving Elagha." Kinnett also made posts on his social media account regarding the same.
On or about May 22, 2024, the Connecticut Star and the Tennessee Star published an article that Elagha "berated a fellow law student, Melody Mostow for taking photographs of the demonstration" and that "in public comments, Melody Mostow alleged that Yasmeen Elagha pushed her in the back. She filed a police report with Northwestern University Police about the incident involving Elagha." Upon information and belief, neither Star Media, the Daily Signal, the Connecticut Star, the Tennessee Star, nor Kinnett ever reached out to Northwestern to corroborate the allegations.
On or about May 22, 2024, Elagha received an email from DLA Piper asking her to complete paperwork for a background check. Elagha immediately emailed the Defendant Deans the published articles, informed them of DLA Piper's request, and expressed her disappointment that Northwestern failed to protect her. On or about May 23, 2024, Dean Roth responded to Elagha that the reporter did not choose to contact the university.
Northwestern's OCR investigated Mostow's report against Elagha and found that there was no physical contact between the two students. The OCR "reviewed video footage of the demonstration and did not observe any physical contact between Ms. Elagha and Student A [Mostow]. Based on the above, NU-OCR found no violation of University policy." On information and belief, Mostow recanted her allegations against Elagha only to Dean Roth.
While studying for the bar exam, on or about June 3, 2024, the Illinois Board of Law Admissions ("Board") sent Elagha a letter requesting additional information to complete processing of her Character and Fitness application due to receiving information that (1) she is a party in a civil suit, and (2) she was "involved in a protest at NU which possibly resulted in a criminal charge." Elagha forwarded the Board's letter to Northwestern and the Defendant Deans on or about June 17, 2024. It took Northwestern at least two weeks to respond to Elagha and at least another week to send a letter to the Board confirming that the allegations against Elagha regarding criminal charges was false and no findings of responsibility were issued from any Title IX complaint.
On or about July 10, 2024, DLA Piper terminated Elagha's employment. On or about August 7, 2024, DLA Piper confirmed their termination of Elagha and did not change their position.
Elagha sued Northwestern under Title VI, which bars race discrimination in federally supported programs. The court allowed her intentional discrimination claim to go forward:
While Elagha does not allege any blatant discriminatory behavior by Defendants, the allegations that Elagha made multiple complaints regarding the harassment and Defendants failed to respond to any of those complaints—or at least responded differently to her complaints than it had to similar claims by students outside of Elagha's protected class—at this stage, permit an inference of intentional discrimination.
But it dismissed her hostile educational environment claim:
"In the education context, courts have required consistent and/or severe misconduct, such as physical threats, the use of racial epithets, violence, or sexual contact and abuse at school to establish a hostile environment claim."
Here, Elagha principally alleges that, while at a protest, she was recorded or photographed without her consent, and community members made threatening remarks about the protestors' future career prospects. She had her scholarship status exposed in a social media post that was later deleted. Another law student told Elagha she was "personally gunning for" Elagha and "doxed" Elagha. A different student falsely reported to campus police that Elagha assaulted her at the November 2023 protest.
These things, taken cumulatively, are troubling, but cannot be characterized as rising to the level of "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive." … Nor does Elagha adequately allege that she was deprived of educational benefits while the harassment was ongoing. "Examples of a negative impact on access to education may include dropping grades, becoming homebound or hospitalized due to harassment, or physical violence." Here, Elagha alleges she lost a career opportunity. However, she graduated with honors and is currently a licensed, practicing attorney.
Even accepting the amended complaint's allegations as sufficient to show severe and pervasive harassment, the claim falters on the deliberate indifference element. An institution is not deliberately indifferent under Title VI if it responds quickly and reasonably, in light of the circumstances it actually knows about, to any incidents of "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" conduct. This standard "requires that the school's response not be clearly unreasonable, which is a higher standard than reasonableness." A school's response will "suffice to avoid institutional liability so long as it is not so unreasonable, under all the circumstances, as to constitute an 'official decision' to permit discrimination."
A response need not be perfect or even successful to clear this bar. A "negligent response," for example, "is not unreasonable, and therefore will not subject a school to [Title VI] liability." Nor do victims have license to demand specific remedial actions from the school. Depending on the circumstances, even a decision not to impose any remedial measures at all is not necessarily clearly unreasonable or deliberately indifferent….
And, as for Elagha's complaints regarding Defendants' "lack of expediency" in sending a letter to DLA Piper refuting the allegations against Elagha, the Court cannot conclude that a two-week response time is objectively unreasonable or illustrates deliberate indifference. Deliberate indifference is a "stringent standard of fault," and Elagha's amended complaint does not clear this high bar. Defendants' motion to dismiss is granted with respect to Elagha's hostile environment and deliberate indifference claims.
I wish opinions in such cases acknowledged that courts can't impose Title VI liability based on universities' tolerating other students' First-Amendment-protected speech, and that any claims have to be pared down to focus on classmates' unprotected conduct. Gartenberg v. Cooper Union (S.D.N.Y. 2025) does a generally very good job on this, acknowledging that
sweeping otherwise-protected political expression into the hostility analysis will create pressure on institutions "to suppress speech to ensure compliance with Title VI," causing "regulated entities to adopt restrictive policies in an effort to avoid liability" for a hostile environment
yet nonetheless also allowing a case to go forward based on alleged unprotected behavior. But in any event, I thought I'd pass along what the court just decided in the Elagha case.
