A pro-Hamas camp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, May 6, 2024. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect

With the settlement of a discrimination lawsuit brought by Jewish students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in federal court, they are no longer required to pay dues to the school’s Graduate Student Union (GSU), a major victory initiated by the union’s support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Represented by the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), a nonprofit organization founded in 1968 that advocates for the abolition of union membership, the students filed their complaint against GSU in March, arguing that its embrace of anti-Zionism discriminates against them as Jews and that their religious belief that the Jewish people are destined to return to their homeland is disadvantaged.

The students had attempted to resist financially supporting the GSU’s anti-Zionism by refusing to pay their membership dues, but the union bosses attempted to force them to comply with union duty by telling them that “no principles, teachings or dogmas of Judaism prohibit membership in a union or the payment of dues or fees to a union.”

The agreement releases them from an obligation which they consider to violate their fundamental beliefs and their freedom of association.

“The foundation-supported MIT graduates who have fought these legal battles have won well-deserved victories,” the organization’s president, Mark Mix, said Wednesday. “Forcing GSU union officials to abandon their blatantly discriminatory dues practices is just the tip of the iceberg: Because there is no right-to-work protection in Massachusetts, GSU ​​still has the power to force the vast majority of MIT graduates to subsidize some of its activities.”

Mix added that NRTW intends to challenge mandatory membership in unions that pursue controversial political goals at other universities, including the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University.

“The foundation’s lawyers continue to provide legal counsel to anyone who opposes the enforcement of radical union agendas at Chicago, Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins universities, and they do so for adherents of both Judaism and Christianity,” he continued. “But this ordeal at MIT should remind lawmakers that all Americans should have the right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics or other reasons.”

NRTW is currently pursuing a similar lawsuit brought by six professors from the City University of New York (CUNY) who had sued to terminate their membership in the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) public service union after it passed an anti-Israel resolution during the country’s war with Hamas in May 2021. The resolution declared solidarity with the Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and crimes against humanity.

The professors had terminated their membership in PSC but remained in its “collective bargaining unit” because of New York State’s “Taylor Law” – which they say uses coercive measures and denies them their rights to free speech and association by forcing them to be represented in collective bargaining by an organization they say espouses anti-Semitic views. In addition to the plaintiffs, 263 other professors and staff have also resigned from the union, according to the Resign.PSC campaign website, which accuses the organization of “violating its mandate” by interfering in a controversial political issue.

A New York district judge dismissed the professors’ lawsuit in November 2022, ruling that several previous cases had upheld the constitutionality of mandatory union representation and rejected the argument now made by NRTW. In July, NRTW and the Fairness Center asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, arguing that the dismissal was “misguided.” They are betting that the nation’s highest court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will share their view on the issue.

“The core question in this case is simple: Can the government compel Jewish professors to accept representation from an interest group it rightly considers anti-Semitic?” the lawyers argued in their petition. “The answer should be a clear ‘no.’ The First Amendment protects the right of individuals, and particularly religious dissidents, to disassociate themselves from associations and speech they abhor.”

The settlement with MIT, which comes before the academic year even begins, is a step forward in efforts by Jewish student and advocacy groups to force colleges and universities to recognize Jewish civil rights and provide Jewish students the same protections as other minority groups. After winning favorable results and verdicts in other cases involving New York University, Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard University, they suffered a significant setback when a federal judge earlier this month dismissed a lawsuit against MIT alleging it failed to protect its Jewish students from an explosion of anti-Semitism on campus that followed the October 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel.

The lawsuit, filed in March by the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, sought an injunction that would have required MIT to enforce policies prohibiting discrimination based on race and ethnicity.

However, U.S. District Judge Richard Gaylore Stearns — who was appointed to the bench in 1993 by former U.S. President Bill Clinton (D) and served as a political staffer and special assistant to Israel critic and former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern — dismissed the suit in a ruling in which he accused the Jewish plaintiffs of expecting MIT officials to be “clairvoyant” in foreseeing a wave of anti-Semitism. He also rejected their argument that pro-Hamas protesters at MIT had intentionally violated the civil rights of Jewish students by calling, it is alleged, for genocide against Jews in Israel and committing numerous other acts of harassment and intimidation.

Jewish students have repeatedly stressed that MIT’s response to anti-Semitism was delayed and paled in comparison to the actions MIT would have taken had the group subjected to discriminatory behavior been anything but Jewish.

In August, MIT student Talia Khan said The General that the school’s Jewish community does not feel discouraged by Stearns’ decision.

“We as a community are not giving up after this dismissal,” she said. “We are pursuing every avenue to ensure that MIT is held accountable for its failure to ensure the safety and civil rights of all students.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.