Lawfare Project, CMU respond to lawsuit alleging antisemitism, Qatar influence

Ziporah Reich wasn’t surprised when Yael Canaan reached out to The Lawfare Project alleging that she experienced antisemitism while a student at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture.

“Carnegie Mellon is the single largest university recipient of funding from Qatar and there have been ample studies to show the higher funding on a campus from Qatar, the higher the antisemitism,” Reich said. “There’s a direct relationship.”

Reich is The Lawfare Project’s director of litigation and is working with Canaan on her lawsuit against CMU. The Lawfare Project bills itself as “the legal arm of the Jewish community,” providing pro bono legal services “to protect the civil and human rights of the Jewish people worldwide.”

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Canaan’s case centers around Mary-Lou Arscott, who was a School of Architecture professor and associate head of design fundamentals while Canaan was a student at the university.

The alleged abuse began when Arscott purportedly denied Canaan a homework assignment extension so she could attend an Oct. 29, 2018, memorial service for the victims of the Oct. 27 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

The complaint further alleges that in 2022, Arscott commented on a project Canaan was working on, saying it looked like the wall Israel uses “to barricade Palestinians out of Israel.” The professor, Canaan contends, told the student that she should focus on “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.”

Canaan claims she reported Arscott’s behavior to her studio professor, who told her not to worry because Arscott wouldn’t be grading her.

The lawsuit alleges that Arscott sent Canaan links to the “violently antisemitic blog” The Funambulist, and copied Wanda Heading-Grant, CMU’s Vice Provost for Community, Culture and Engagement, on the email.

The complaint details the reports Canaan allegedly made to various school administrators, who either ignored her pleas, failed to take any action to protect her or punish her abusers, or in the case of Elizabeth Rosemeyer, CMU’s chief diversity officer and the vice provost of diversity, “aggressively discouraged Canaan from filing a formal complaint, which would have triggered an investigation of Arscott, the DEI’s failure to address the misconduct and the systematic culture of antisemitism.”

As a result of the purported behavior, Canaan has brought six claims against CMU, including three counts of violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act; breach of contract; and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

As part of the proceedings, Canaan filed a motion seeking discovery on information concerning CMU’s relationship with Qatar, the Qatar Investment Authority and the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.

United States District Judge W. Scott Hardy issued an opinion last month, granting Canaan’s request for discovery, writing that “Qatar and its affiliates could be a source of antisemitic influence upon CMU. Indeed, the largess of Qatari funds supplied to CMU may permit a reasonable juror to infer, in light of logic and common experience, that significant amounts of money and the reliance on such funds serves to motivate CMU to abide by expectations and wishes of its generous donors.”

Reich said that evidence has been discovered showing that Qatar is paying part of Rosemeyer’s salary, calling it a “smoking gun.”

“Meaning the person in the highest position in the office that is charged with enforcing civil rights for Jewish students and gay students and women is being paid essentially by Qatar,” Reich said.

The Qatari government, she said, is hostile to Jews and Israel.

“So, it’s no surprise when our client, Yael Canaan, came to Elizabeth Rosemeyer, who’s the woman that heads the DEI office, whose salary has been, in large part, funded by Qatar, did everything she could to dissuade our client from filing an antisemitic complaint,” Reich said.

Reich said Rosemeyer and the university did everything they could to defend Arscott and her behavior.

“They were angry at Yael for trying to stop it, stop the teacher from recognizing what she did was wrong, apologizing and making sure it doesn’t happen again, which is all she [Yael] was asking for,” Reich said.

To make matters worse, Reich alleged, CMU secretly recorded Canaan, which is a violation of Pennsylvania law.

“The reason we know this is that it came up in discovery,” she said.

Reich alleged that in order to receive money from Qatar, CMU had to agree to follow and respect the country’s customs.

Canaan’s lawsuit, she suggests, may be the reason for the lack of mass protests on the campus following Oct. 7, 2023, noting that both Canaan and other students interviewed for the lawsuit have all claimed that “students are extremely radicalized against Israel.”

“The school is being very careful, or as careful as they can be,” she said. “In comparison to other universities, they are being very careful because they were already sued.”

Reich said she’s thrilled with Hardy’s decision, noting that CMU fought the discovery request and lost.

“It’s important to note that this is really a landmark,” she said. “Lawsuits have tried to get this type of discovery involving schools and lost. We’re the first to get this kind of discovery.”

According to the Department of Education’s Foreign Gift & Contract Reporting dashboard, CMU receives the second highest amount of foreign funding of any university, second only to Harvard University. It has received nearly $2 billion from Qatar.

In an email to the Chronicle, a spokesperson for CMU said the funding it receives from Qatar “has no impact on how we protect the safety and well being of all of our students, including our Jewish students.”

The spokesperson noted that CMU has operated its campus in Qatar for more than two decades in compliance with all applicable U.S. laws and that 90% of the funding received from the country goes to operating the CMU-Q campus. They further said that Reich is incorrect in her claim that Qatar pays part of Rosemeyer’s salary.

In the email, CMU “emphatically” denied “that funding provided to operate our campus in Qatar influences our treatment of members of our community, including students, who are Jewish.”

As to the discovery granted by Hardy, the university said that “many judges provide wide latitude to examine a range of topics.” That, CMU said, doesn’t mean an “acceptance of the premise of the lawsuit” and that information from discovery may not be “ultimately admissible.”

“The court has made no ruling with respect to the admissibility of evidence concerning CMU’s relationship with Qatar,” the email said

The university’s spokesperson said CMU does not radicalize students against Israel and that it has no political viewpoints.

CMU, the email noted, began annual training with a specific focus on combating antisemitism in 2019 and is working to build relations with the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. It also began the series “Deeper Conversations” in 2024, starting with a focus on combating hate and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The university’s representative pointed to several other CMU events centered on combating antisemitism, including lectures, community gatherings and fundraisers in remembrance of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, and hosting the Violins of Hope project with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and the Holocaust Center.

It also highlighted the recent B grade it received on ADL’s Campus Antisemitism Report Card, which the organization defined as “better than most.”

“Standing up against hate and prejudice is an ongoing imperative,” the email said.

CMU said it looked forward to defending the specific allegations raised in the lawsuit in court.

Reich, too, looks forward to litigating the case, calling what happened to Canaan “shocking.”

“She had a problem, went to a person to complain. That person not only didn’t fix it, they retaliated. She went to every single office and was stonewalled again and again, told a bunch of BS about what they’re going to do to try and help her and said she should not file an official complaint,” she said. “They gaslighted her, essentially.” PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.