A Carnegie Mellon University architecture student says she was subjected to a “cruel campaign of antisemitic abuse” by a professor who said in class that her project looked like “the wall Israelis use to barricade Palestinians out of Israel,” and suggested her time would be better spent pondering “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.”
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Pittsburgh federal court, Yael Canaan, who graduated this year from the Carnegie Mellon’s School of Architecture, accused Associate Head for Design Fundamentals Mary-Lou Arscott of targeting her for being Jewish, at one point allegedly emailing her a link to what the suit describes as a “violently antisemitic blog.”
Arscott had previously denied Canaan an extension on an assignment so she could attend a memorial service for the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in 2018, Canaan’s freshman year, according to the suit. There had been other “jarring incidents that smacked of antisemitism,” the lawsuit goes on, saying the atmosphere eventually got toxic enough that Canaan began to feel unsafe on campus.
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But when Canaan, 23, complained to university officials, who the lawsuit says “did nothing to protect [her] from the torment and hostile environment they saw with their own eyes.” As her pleas were being ignored by the administration, other Carnegie Mellon faculty members launched a retaliatory campaign against Canaan for speaking out, according to the lawsuit.
“They told her that she needed to stop ‘acting like a victim’ and that they would not ‘be an advocate for the Jews,’” the lawsuit states. “The faculty subjected her to a systemic campaign of hostility, including limiting her class time, ceasing direct one-on-one instruction provided to every other student, and omitting her project—and only hers—from a disseminated book of the studio work created by all the other students in the class.” The suit notes that published studio work “is an integral part of obtaining employment following graduation,” and being excluded hurt her job prospects.
In an emailed statement on Wednesday afternoon, a Carnegie Mellon spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “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. 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.”
Attorney Ziporah Reich of The Lawfare Project, which brought the suit on behalf of Canaan, said in a statement shared by a representative, “In addition to seeking justice for the aggrieved student, this lawsuit endeavors to expose the toxic undercurrent of antisemitism that for years has corroded academia and has laid the foundation for the unbridled Jew-hatred that has become rampant on college campuses since Hamas’s attack on Israel.”
Arscott did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Taken together, the experience caused Canaan “chronic, debilitating, and nausea-inducing migraines, triggered by stress,” which occurred dozens of times a month, according to the suit. She developed “severe clinical depression,” and accumulated large therapy bills, the suit continues.
“All the while, the perpetrators of the antisemitic harassment—and the Administration which protected them—went on as normal,” it says.
On May 5, 2022, Canaan and the rest of the studio class had their final review, according to the lawsuit. The students had been working on their projects all semester, it says.
“The model [Canaan] created focused on the conversion of a public space into a private space through an eruv,” the lawsuit continues. “An eruv is a small wire boundary that symbolically extends the private domain of devoutly religious Jewish households into public areas, permitting activities within it that are normally forbidden in public on the Sabbath. It is an integral feature of many neighborhoods with large devout Jewish populations.”
When Arcott approached Canaan and asked about the eruv, Canaan started to explain, according to the suit. But Arscott “cut her off… [and] said—completely out of the blue—that the wall in the model looked like the wall Israelis use to barricade Palestinians out of Israel,” the lawsuit states. “This shocked Canaan, who then tried to regain her composure and finish her presentation. But when Canaan finished, Arscott said only that Canaan’s time would have been better spent if she had instead explored ‘what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.’”
Canaan told the studio professor right away about what had happened, but was told “not to worry because Arscott would not be grading her,” according to the suit. “Canaan left class demoralized, shaken, and afraid,” it says.
All the while, the university neglected Canaan’s reports of antisemitism and urged her not to file a formal complaint, the lawsuit claims. Her suit was brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in institutions that receive federal funding, and seeks unspecified damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract, and civil rights violations.
The lawsuit is one in a line of recent filings against universities accused of allowing antisemitism to spread on campus. NYU and UC Berkeley were sued last month over antisemitism claims, and the University of Pennsylvania was hit last week with a lawsuit filed by two students alleging the school hasn’t responded properly to anti-Jewish bias.
