Harvard University has settled a high-profile lawsuit by an Orthodox Jewish student who accused the Ivy League school of ignoring antisemitism on campus.
Alexander Kestenbaum, who is known as Shabbos, and Harvard jointly agreed to end the case, according to a dismissal notice filed on Thursday in Boston federal court.
“Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum acknowledge each other’s steadfast and important efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard and elsewhere,” the university said in a statement on Thursday. “Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum are pleased to have resolved the litigation.”
Settlement terms were not disclosed. Lawyers for Kestenbaum did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The settlement came four months after Harvard promised additional protection for Jewish students, as it resolved two lawsuits claiming it was a hotbed of rampant antisemitism.
Both lawsuits were among many accusing universities of encouraging antisemitism after war broke out following the Hamas-led onslaught on October 7, 2023, leading to pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests on many American campuses.
Jewish students said Harvard tolerated their being maligned as “murderers” and subjected to viral attacks, and accused the university of hiring professors who promoted anti-Jewish violence and spread antisemitic propaganda.
The lawsuits were brought by Students Against Antisemitism, Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
Kestenbaum was a plaintiff in the Students Against Antisemitism lawsuit, but did not settle at the time.
He graduated from Harvard Divinity School last year and has become a growing voice in a Republican-led campaign to root out antisemitism in major American universities.
Harvard is one of the chief targets of that campaign, and US President Donald Trump’s administration has frozen or terminated more than $2.6 billion of the university’s federal grants and contracts in recent weeks.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school is suing the Trump administration over grant cutoffs, mainly in medical sciences, calling them an unconstitutional attempt to curtail academic freedom and free speech.
Another Ivy League school, Columbia University, is also a prime White House target over antisemitism.
Students at Columbia held anti-Israel protests that included calls for Israel’s destruction and pro-Hamas rhetoric.
A number of progressive Jewish organizations have said the federal actions threaten Jews’ safety, despite the administration’s claim that the effort is in response to antisemitism.
The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 52,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists.