The Muslim Legal Fund of America, a civil rights nonprofit, filed a Title VI complaint against the University with the U.S. Department of Education in June.
The complaint alleges “harassment and discrimination based on … race, national origin, religion and perceived status” on campus toward “Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and allied Brown University students.” The DoE has not yet opened a Title VI investigation in response to the complaint.
The students brought forward their complaints to the MFLA with the help of the group BrownU Alumni for Palestine, according to a representative from BA4P.
“Many students who felt compelled to speak out against the war and the popular disregard for Palestinian lives encountered an onslaught of abuse and harassment by peers, faculty, and visitors to campus, who accused them of antisemitism and supporting terrorism despite the fact that they said nothing against the Jewish faith, and in several instances had Jewish peers alongside them,” MLFA wrote in a post on their website.
“Brown has not received notice of any complaint from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights … and cannot confirm any such complaint,” Amanda McGregor, a University spokesperson, wrote in an email to The Herald.
The MLFA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The complaint alleges that the University treated “non-Arab, Muslim and allied” protesting students differently. The charges against the 20 students associated with Jews for Ceasefire Now, who organized a sit-in on November 8, were dropped, while the University refused to do the same for the 41 students arrested during a December sit-in organized by the Brown Divest Coalition. Arrested students were issued a six-month not-guilty filing by the city court in May.
In a previous interview with The Herald, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 said that the charges against the 20 students were dropped following the shooting of Hisham Awartani ’25, who was one of three Palestinian students shot in Burlington, Vermont in late November.
A representative for the Brown Divest Coalition also expressed their organization’s support for the complaint, adding that the group “remains committed to the struggle for divestment from Zionist occupation as a significant step towards actualizing the safety of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students and their co-strugglers on campus.”
Anisha Kumar is a section editor covering University Hall. She is a junior from Menlo Park, California concentrating in English and Political Science who loves speed-crosswording and rewatching sitcoms.
