Juden verboten: UVA, administration, proxies hit with massive federal lawsuit over rampant antisemitism

The University of Virginia (UVA) administration and two colluding proxy organizations have been named in a massive federal lawsuit over rampant antisemitism on Grounds.

Plaintiff, Matan Goldstein, is an Israeli-American UVA First Year student. His attorneys, Brown and Gavalier, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia on May 17.

Named defendants are:

The Rector and Visitors of The University of Virginia (a/k/a and hereinafter referred to as “The University of Virginia” or “UVA”); Rector Robert D. Hardie, in his personal and individual capacity; President James E. Ryan, in his personal and individual capacity; Faculty For Justice In Palestine UVA Chapter (a/k/a and hereinafter referred to as “FJP at UVA”); Students For Justice In Palestine at UVA (a/k/a and hereinafter referred to as “SJP at UVA”).

Goldstein—who recently detailed his experiences on The Schilling Show—has been the subject of rabid and persistent attacks and threats over his ethnicity and faith, since his arrival at the University of Virginia in 2023.

Plaintiff establishes the basis and confines of the suit, as summarized:

• The plaintiff seeks injunctive relief, compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and interest against Defendants Ryan and Hardie in their individual, personal, and official capacities
• The Plaintiff alleges Virginia common law torts of Negligence, Gross Negligence, and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress against Defendants Faculty for Justice in Palestine UVA Chapter, and Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA
• The Plaintiff claims to be a victim of hate-based, intentional discrimination, severe harassment and abuse, and illegal retaliation
• The Plaintiff asserts that his entire college experience has been materially impaired and altered, all because of the Defendants’ egregious acts, errors, and omissions
• The Plaintiff declares that the Defendants’ reckless breach and wanton disregard of Defendants’ duties of care entitles the Plaintiff to a substantial financial award against each Defendant to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.
• Upon his arrival at UVA for orientation and registration, the Plaintiff observed that antisemitism appeared to be alive and well “on Grounds,” and that University leadership was uninterested in hearing or doing anything about it
• Plaintiff notes that the very existence of SJP at UVA; membership in the antisemitic, pro-Hamas organization; repeated violations of University policies and student codes of conduct; and the innumerable instances of hate-based misconduct alleged and referred to below  constitute, as a matter of law, breaches of the numerous duties owed by SJP at UVA and its student-members to Matan and other members of the University community

Plaintiff concludes the following:

• An aura of menace has once again descended upon Charlottesville
• Hate has returned to the “Grounds” of the University of Virginia, this time from within
• Virulent antisemitism, antisemitic discrimination, and antisemitic harassment, abuse, and bullying are rampant throughout everything that is the University of Virginia

Following the unspeakably barbarous 10/7/23 Hamas attacks against Israel, things turned for the worse for Jewish/Israeli students at the University of Virginia. Per the suit:

• Hamas, the foreign terrorist organization, had simultaneously mobilized its United States-based propaganda arm and proxies to launch pre-programmed public relations campaigns aimed at promoting Hamas and societal disruption within the United States
• On Hamas’s signal, United States-based proxies, affiliates, and “chapters” launched an offensive campaign within our borders to advance Hamas’s antisemitic, anti-Israeli, and Anti-American objectives
• Hamas directed its United States proxy, National Students for Justice in Palestine, to prepare its followers—students and faculty in dozens of “chapters” across the United States—to amplify Hamas’s public relations campaign, propagate hate and sow widespread dissension in their communities
• Within hours of the attacks in Israel, UVA faculty and student groups emerged publicly with slick messaging pre-prepared by Hamas-proxy National SJP, specifically calculated to promote Hamas, to oppose Israel, Israelis, and people of the Jewish faith, and to create a toxic, abusive, intimidating educational environment for Jews and Israelis in this community
• While state and federal leaders (Good, Youngkin, Miyares) unequivocally condemned the Hamas atrocities and expressions of antisemitism at UVA, the University itself, the President of the University, and the Rector of the University refused to condemn antisemitism on Grounds
• UVA’s response to Plaintiff upon receiving conccerns regarding the school’s antisemitic environment: “move out” of First Year dorms if you feel unsafe or uncomfortable
• UVA administration ignored a well-trodden tactic employed by hate groups and now used by the pro-Hamas student and faculty groups at the University of Virginia: the wearing of masks to create an atmosphere of intimidation while hiding the identity of the agitators—a practice that is also a crime under Virginia law
• At an October 23, 2023 protest march to the Rotunda, FJP at UVA and SJP at UVA conducted a riotous protest walk out during which, Plaintiff Goldstein was berated, insulted, threatened with violence, and physically assaulted

Certain elements of UVA faculty have been complicit in broad antisemitism, as portrayed in the suit:

• Pro-Hamas faculty members have rendered the entirety of the physical “Grounds” or campus of the University of Virginia, a hostile, unwelcoming, and dangerous space for Jewish students and faculty members
• Pro-Hamas faculty members have canceled classes so that they and their students could attend anti-Israel protests
• Pro-Hamas faculty members have offered “extra credit” and boosts in grades to students who attend anti-Israeli, antisemitic rallies
• Pro-Hamas faculty members and groups of faculty members have threatened to withhold final grades for their students, with the full understanding that doing so will cause tremendous harm to the students, even preventing graduation—this, to help pressure the United States to change course regarding support for Israel
• Entire academic departments such as the Center for Politics, the UVA Department of English, the UVA Corcoran Department of History, the Department of Religious Studies, and the Department of Global Studies have expressed “support and solidarity” with pro-Hamas UVA faculty and students and the antisemitic discrimination and harassment that has taken place on Grounds against Jewish and Israeli students and faculty

The suit delineates further antisemitic acts at the University of Virginia:

• On various platforms, pro-Hamas UVA students and faculty have approved of and celebrated the rape, mutilation, and murder of Jews in Israel
• At UVA, Jewish students (including the Plaintiff) have been and continue to be berated as “filthy Jews,” “Hitler,” “Nazi,” and “genocidal fucks,” among many other despicable slurs
• The Plaintiff and other Jewish students have been physically assaulted and threatened with violence
• Pro-Hamas, antisemitic UVA students and faculty have emblazoned most spaces at the University, especially the cherished central “Academical Village” or “Lawn” with antisemitic posters and markings

Regarding illegal pro-Hamas “encampments,” one of which was dispersed by law enforcement on May 4, the suit notes:

• During the times that the encampments were in place, it was impossible for students and faculty to access many of the main academic buildings or main University offices or the libraries without encountering the encampments and their antisemitic proclamations and utterances of hate
• The Ryan-Hardie Administration has admitted that the occupants of the encampments and protesters violated University policies and broke the law, as well as committed acts of violence and threatened to commit further acts of violence and disruption of University operations
• The Ryan-Hardie Administration has admitted that “outsiders” who are “known to law enforcement” as participants in riotous or violent acts “elsewhere in the Commonwealth” were among the occupants of the encampments
• The effect of these behaviors has been to make Jewish and Israeli students and faculty feel unwelcome and unsafe, feel ashamed of their immutable, protected characteristics, feel uneasy moving freely within the University Community and attending classes and exams, and feel uncertain and insecure about their experience and whether they are being treated fairly by professors and peers
• A further notable effect of these behaviors has been to place Jewish and Israeli students and faculty at UVA in imminent and constant fear of physical attack, violence, and even death

Jewish students and their parents were stonewalled by President Ryan and ultimately retaliated against, in their efforts to obtain relief:

• When Jewish students and their parents asked President Ryan for help and petitioned him for a meeting, he forced them to wait nearly four months before he would meet with them. When President Ryan did agree to meet with his Jewish students, he demanded that the meeting be limited to only four Jewish parents, who were forced to attend in person with their “biological child” student in attendance with them
• The University of Virginia ignored and rejected the Plaintiff’s pleas for help. After the meeting with President Ryan, and while University, state, and federal investigations into antisemitic civil rights violations were ongoing, the Plaintiff suffered retaliation at the hands of the Defendants

When the Anti-Defamation League issued a grade of F to UVA for antisemitism on campus, the University’s operatives sprang into action:

• UVA’s media liaisons falsely reported the claim that only a few Jewish students had complained, and then only mildly, about a limited number of isolated and minor incidents that were, at worst, only slightly offensive
• The UVA media apparatus falsely claimed that no major and, more importantly, “formal” complaints had been lodged or initiated, even while their own lawyers were responding to formal, federal investigations

The suit continues with a depiction of institutional “lawfare” retaliatorily employed against Plaintiff Goldstein:

• One of the retaliatory tactics employed by National SJP, through its “chapters,” is the use of various forms of “lawfare” to target Jewish students and student-journalists who stand up and speak out against antisemitism and hate
• Defendant SJP at UVA, through its self-identified “President,” filed a bogus and false Honor Charge against the Plaintiff in a similar act of retaliatory “lawfare.”
• Defendant SJP at UVA did not even bother to disguise its motives: it admitted, in the false “charge,” that it was doing so in retaliation for the Plaintiff speaking to a member of the national media about antisemitism at UVA

Seriousness and procedural details of Honor Charges at UVA in general and UVA’s complicity in this specific charge are explained in the suit:

• An Honor Charge is the most serious accusation and infraction in the University of Virginia universe. UVA professors and administrators will readily admit that a student has more likelihood of rehabilitating his or her reputation and career following a murder conviction than from an Honor Charge at UVA
• Once a charge has been filed, no matter how obviously bogus, fraudulent, or fake, the University claims that it cannot be withdrawn by the accuser or “reporter.” The charge can, however, be summarily dismissed, sua sponte, by the University or its Honor Committee, and this has happened numerous times in the past
• Defendant UVA has admitted that the Administration, which includes Defendants Ryan, and Hardie, possessed actual knowledge of the Charge and had reason to fully know of its retaliatory and fraudulent nature. They allowed it to proceed nonetheless
• Defendants UVA, Ryan, and Hardie did nothing to assist the Plaintiff or call a halt to the illegal and retaliatory proceeding
• After enduring nearly a month of extreme stress, anguish, and excruciating pain as an accused in the most grave of UVA disciplinary proceedings, the Plaintiff filed a motion to dismiss. The next day, the Honor Committee met and mysteriously decided that the Honor Charge lacked any evidence to support it

The suit goes on to expose UVA administration’s history of disparate treatment in race-based school incidents:

• The University of Virginia, under the presidency and administration of Defendant Ryan, and under Defendant Hardie’s multiple terms as a Board of Visitors member and, now, as Rector, has a troubling and problematic history with the subject of race and racialist decision-making and disparate treatment
• The recent case of Bettinger v. The Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia, details specific examples of racially disparate treatment and racially discriminatory decisions by UVA under the Ryan-Hardie Administration
• Proof of President Ryan, Rector Hardie, and UVA’s willingness to treat people and circumstances differently based on race is demonstrated by comparison and contrast of the September 7, 2022, “Homer Noose Incident” versus the handling of antisemitism Grounds since October 7, 2023, wherein:
  • A rope or object fashioned into a “noose” was found draped on the “Homer Statue” on the Lawn
  • President Ryan concluded that a “hate crime” had occurred, convened the “Threat Assessment Team,” and summoned the University Police, Albemarle County Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
  • “Community Alerts” were broadcast warning of the commission of a “hate crime”
  • Meetings between President Ryan and the African-American Community were immediately scheduled and would be frequently held for months
  • Within a few hours, President Ryan published an open letter, stating “The facts available indicate that this was an act intended to intimidate members of this community…”
  • President Ryan appeared at multiple events with students, faculty, and alumni to “assure” them that the perpetrator would be caught and punished, that measures were being implemented to ensure the safety of community members
  • President Ryan and Rector Hardie did none of these things for the Jewish Community

The suit continues with a litany of ongoing offenses committed at and/or by the University of Virginia:

• The pro-Hamas UVA students have turned what once was a beautiful bastion of enlightened freethinking and tolerance into a trash-laden wasteland of antisemitic and anti- Israeli hate, and Defendants UVA, Ryan, and Hardie allowed it to happen
  • The phrases, chants, and slogans shouted at UVA are antisemitic words of hate
  • The symbols, totems, and runes displayed at UVA are antisemitic emblems of hate
  • Antisemitism at the University of Virginia is pervasive and constant and has thoroughly infected the entire institution
  • The words, deeds, actions, and threats at UVA are no different than swastikas
  • The words, deeds, actions, and threats at UVA are no different than the “Totenkopf”

Plaintiff Goldstein’s damages are then detailed:

• The Plaintiff has suffered damages as a direct, proximate, and foreseeable result of the acts, errors, omissions, and breaches of duty by the Defendants
• The Plaintiff has suffered damages as a direct, proximate, and foreseeable result of the acts, errors, omissions, and breaches of duty by the Defendants
• The Plaintiff’s ambitions, career prospects, reputation, physical and mental well-being, and opportunities for happiness have been altered, harmed, and impaired
• The Plaintiff has been threatened, physically assaulted, and called vile names and slurs on multiple occasions. “Filthy Jew” is but one of the many epithets to which the Plaintiff is treated on a regular basis
• Defendant UVA views and treats Plaintiff as a “second-class citizen” solely because of his Jewish identity, his national origin, his ethnicity, and his shared ancestry. The Plaintiff has been denied the protections and privileges that UVA affords non-Jewish students
• Pro-Hamas students and faculty, including the Defendants FJP at UVA and SJP at UVA, acting individually and in concert with other groups and individuals, taunt, malign, ridicule, assault, abuse, harass, intimidate, isolate, exclude and marginalize the Plaintiff with impunity and without consequence
• The Plaintiff does not feel physically safe in Charlottesville or anywhere on University premises and spends as much time at home, away from his college friends, his teachers, and his college experience, as he can in order to remain safe and secure
• The Defendants individually and collectively created, nurtured, fostered, permitted, and encouraged a toxic environment of racial and religious animus and hostility and harassment directed specifically at Plaintiff Matan Goldstein
• The harassment, abuse, bullying, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, and threats of injury and even death were regular, constant, pervasive, so extraordinarily severe that even in isolation, a hostile educational environment existed as a matter of law
• Today, while in Charlottesville, the Plaintiff lives in hiding—he fled his dormitory and has been taken in by sympathetic families who choose not to disclose either their identities, their address, or the Plaintiff’s whereabouts out of fear of retribution
• The Plaintiff has been ostracized from University society and student life
• The Plaintiff has been denied meaningful access to all of the benefits and resources of UVA
• The Plaintiff has been denied an advocate or administrator in loco parentis dedicated to acting on his behalf
• The Plaintiff has lost an entire year of college
• The Plaintiff has suffered significant physical injuries, harms, and damages
• The Plaintiff has suffered mental anguish, severe emotional distress, paralyzing anxiety, constant oppressive fear, depression, feelings of worthlessness, humiliation, embarrassment, and a constant sense of dread and impending doom
• The Plaintiff has suffered actual economic and financial damages
• The Plaintiff has been forced to deny his faith, to hide his Jewish identity, to shield himself from recognition as a Jew and an Israeli. This has caused him endless personal suffering of a spiritual nature

Goldstein’s suit concludes with a chronicle of Defendants’ breaches of constitutional rights and violations of federal and state law along with demands for just compensation from the various Defendants.

Many in the greater Charlottesville community have expressed outrage over President Ryan’s cavalier attitude toward antisemitism on Grounds and his displayed callousness toward the effected individuals and their families.

Onlookers are hopeful that this suit will finally allow the true nature of UVA’s administration and proxies to be laid bare for all to see and that justice for the Plaintiff and other University of Virginia victims of antisemitism will be obtained.