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Harvard filed a motion on Monday to dismiss Harvard Business School graduate Yoav Segev’s ongoing lawsuit against the University, claiming that Segev failed to show that Harvard violated antidiscrimination law in its response to an alleged assault against him at a protest.

Segev first filed his suit against Harvard in July, claiming administrators did not adequately respond to his report that two students physically assaulted him at an October 2023 pro-Palestine protest. In an amended August complaint, Segev specifically accused Harvard Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90 and former Harvard police chief Victor A. Clay of hindering the investigation into the incident.

But in a Monday memorandum in support of Harvard’s motion to dismiss the suit, Harvard’s lawyers argued that Segev did not provide sufficient evidence to show that the University’s response to the incident violated Title VI, the section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that bans federally funded institutions from discriminating on the basis of shared ancestry.

Segev’s lawyers claimed in the amended complaint that Harvard obstructed the criminal investigation into his alleged assault. But they also acknowledged that HUPD worked with the FBI to investigate the incident — a concession that Harvard’s lawyers were quick to point out.

“Mr. Segev’s allegation, then, is not that Harvard failed to take action, but simply that he disagrees with the actions taken after the investigation,” they wrote.

Segev claimed that Harvard did not meaningfully discipline two graduate students involved in the incident. Both students faced charges of assault and battery, though the charges were dropped after the pair successfully completed a pretrial diversion program. Harvard also removed one of the students from his position as a freshman proctor within weeks of the incident.

Still, Segev claimed in his suit that the University should have pursued further disciplinary action against the students. His suit alleged that by not engaging in further disciplinary action against the students, Harvard and the HUPD engaged in an antisemitic “conspiracy” against him.

But lawyers for Harvard claimed that Segev’s allegations fail to meet the legal definition of a conspiracy, which requires two or more actors conspiring together against a separate party, because the defendants named in the suit all represent Harvard.

“Harvard cannot conspire with itself,” they wrote.

Lawyers for Segev did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Segev’s suit is only the latest in a series of legal challenges against the University to focus on the October 2023 incident. Harvard Divinity School graduate Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum filed a similar Title VI complaint against the University that focused on the incident, but was settled in May.

Segev had initially attempted to join Kestenbaum’s suit as an anonymous plaintiff, but his motion was denied by the judge.

The most recent suit has unfolded amid continued internal and external pressure on Harvard to improve its response to antisemitism on campus. A presidential task force report on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, published in May, revealed several instances of hostility toward Jewish students on campus and recommended that Harvard take a variety of steps to better address antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.

The Trump administration has also repeatedly used allegations of antisemitism as justification for its actions against Harvard, including opening a series of federal investigations and freezing more $2 billion in federal funding to the University. A majority of that funding has been restored after a federal judge ruled the freeze illegal, according to Harvard.

Harvard on Monday also moved to dismiss a lawsuit by a student advocacy group claiming that the University’s policies discriminate against students with mental health disabilities.

—Staff writer Sebastian B. Connolly can be reached at sebastian.connolly@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @SebastianC4784.

—Staff writer Julia A. Karabolli can be reached at julia.karabolli@thecrimson.com.