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Harvard filed a motion last month to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two former employees, Anna Weick and Ira E. Stoll ’94, alleging that the University violated Massachusetts law by failing to pay them for unused personal time.

Lawyers for Weick, a former program manager at the Harvard Law School’s Crimmigration Clinic, and Stoll, the former managing editor for the Harvard Kennedy School-based publication Education Next, argued in an October complaint that Harvard’s policy to not compensate employees for unused personal time violates the Massachusetts Wage Act.

The Wage Act says employers must compensate unused vacation time with wages when an employee leaves, though the law does not define vacation time. Weick and Stoll argue that there should not be a distinction between unused vacation time, which Harvard compensates employees for, and unused personal time, which it does not.

Harvard’s paid time off policy includes three paid personal days for employees to “offer additional flexibility in balancing work and life,” in addition to 15 to 20 paid vacation days every year. Personal days, unlike vacation days, cannot be carried over from year to year, and the University does not provide additional compensation for not taking them.

The University’s lawyers argued in their motion to dismiss that personal time, which is distinguished in the time off policies from vacation time, does not meet the threshold for a wage under the Wage Act.

“Plaintiffs contend that Harvard violated the Wage Act by failing to pay out personal time upon termination. But the Wage Act requires no such thing,” the lawyers wrote in a memorandum in support of the motion.

Though the suit was initially filed in state court, Harvard successfully filed a motion to move it to federal court. Lawyers for the University argued that the dispute required interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement — the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers contract that applied to Weick — drawing in the federal Labor Management Relations Act.

But lawyers for the plaintiffs urged the judge to return the case to state court in a motion to remand filed Nov. 13, pointing to the fact that the University’s time off policies apply equally to union and non-union employees. A judge has not ruled on the motion.

While the lawsuit currently lists only Weick and Stoll, Raymond Dinsmore, a lawyer representing both plaintiffs, said they intend to file a motion to make it a class action lawsuit, which would allow all Harvard employees affected by the personal time policy to benefit if the plaintiffs win the suit.

“Then every worker who is impacted by the wage theft, or alleged wage theft, will stand to benefit from the claim,” Dinsmore said.

Weick was employed by Harvard from August 2021 to June 2025. Stoll was employed from January 2019 to July 2023. Neither had used any of their three personal days, and they are suing in part for 21 hours of wages each for which they were not compensated for in their final paychecks.

Prior to working for the University, Stoll attended Harvard as an undergraduate. He served as president of The Harvard Crimson in 1993, where he was censured by executives of the paper for comments made towards female editors.

Since leaving the University, Stoll has become a regular Harvard critic on social media and in articles posted to his Substack, The Editors. But Stoll has not acknowledged his lawsuit in recent articles, including several criticizing Harvard for the hiring of professors critical of Israel. He has not addressed the lawsuit on social media since joining the suit last month, and he declined to personally comment for this article.

Dinsmore said that Stoll will receive relatively little financial gain from the lawsuit and that it should not be considered a conflict of interest for his coverage of the University.

“We would dispute any characterization that he’s somehow not disclosing anything that would be important for his readers,” Dinsmore said.

A spokesperson for Harvard declined to comment on pending litigation.

—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.