Carnegie Mellon graduate alleges ‘cruel campaign of antisemitic abuse’

A Jewish woman and graduate of Carnegie Mellon University is suing the school in federal court, alleging she faced “a cruel campaign of antisemitic abuse” by campus faculty and administration.

Yael Canaan, 23, a New Jersey resident of Israeli ancestry, filed her complaint in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. The allegations involve her time in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Architecture between 2018 and this year.

The suit comes as colleges and universities face growing criticism over their ability to make Jewish students feel safe on their campuses this fall amid the Israel-Hamas War, as well as a spike in antisemitic incidents nationally that preceded it.

Canaan alleges a professor in the School of Architecture told her in class that her studio project should have focused on “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group,” according to the 39-page complaint filed Wednesday.

The lawsuit asserts the same professor later emailed Canaan a link to a violently antisemitic blog and cc’ed CMU’s chief diversity officer and the vice provost of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — campus officers responsible for protecting students from discrimination.

She says university faculty and staff failed to intervene on her behalf.

Canaan filed the lawsuit under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.

A Carnegie Mellon spokesman issued a statement responding to the lawsuit.

“We are steadfast in our commitment to create and nurture a welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment where all students can reach their potential and thrive,” it read. “We take any allegations of mistreatment or harassment seriously. We have just received notice of this lawsuit and we will evaluate and respond to it.”

Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian went further in a message to the campus Thursday afternoon.

“Antisemitism and other forms of discrimination are antithetical to the values that ground our diverse community and drive our academic mission, and hate has no place on our campus,” he wrote.

“The community that I have known and been proud of during my tenure at Carnegie Mellon — a community that deeply values differing identities and actively encourages the respectful exchange of disparate ideas, views and beliefs — is strikingly at odds with the one described in the lawsuit.”

Carnegie Mellon joins other schools of late to face such litigation.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Education has opened investigations into scores of colleges and universities in recent days, as well as school districts, over incidents of antisemitism or anti-Muslim harassment.

Canaan says that as a result of “harassment, public humiliation, and isolation from other students,” she developed “chronic, debilitating, and nausea-inducing migraines, triggered by stress” and suffered dozens of these migraines every month.

She developed “severe clinical depression, experienced grave emotional distress, was cheated out of the education for which CMU charges hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, and saw her career materially damaged just as it was beginning,” the lawsuit alleges.

Canaan contends she incurred substantial medical bills.

Her lawyers state Canaan seeks redress for damages and a jury trial.