Hundreds of Haverford and Bryn Mawr alumni and students protest legal settlement Restricting Free Speech
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 14, 2026
Contact: National Campus Jewish Alliance campusjewishalliance@gmail.com
Click here to read the Haverford community’s letter.
HAVERFORD, PA — Over 300 alumni, current students, faculty, and other affiliates of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges signed a letter in opposition to a legal settlement Haverford reached with the Deborah Project over allegations that Haverford tolerated antisemitism. The letter calls on Haverford to preserve the rights to free speech and academic freedom, and not to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
The lawsuit, brought by a mostly anonymous group called “Jews at Haverford”, had been repeatedly dismissed in federal court, with the district judge ruling that the claimed instances of antisemitism were in fact protected political speech. The settlement was reached to resolve a narrower, refiled lawsuit, which claimed that Haverford violated its own policies by not investigating all reported complaints of bias.
“It’s shocking that the College settled with the Deborah Project when the claims of the lawsuit were so weak,” said Haverford alumnus Ben Allen ‘02, who helped organize signatures for the letter. The letter, written by alumni and students, criticizes the settlement as undermining Haverford’s core values, and demands that the College “guarantee that the first amendment rights of students, staff and faculty will be protected on campus” in light of this settlement.
The settlement follows a broader trend in which colleges, under pressure from private lawsuits and Title VI investigations launched by the Trump Administration, have signed agreements restricting political speech and criticism of Israel. A recent whistleblower report revealed that such investigations were pushed by the Trump administration for political reasons, despite investigators finding little evidence of civil rights violations.
“Students are really scared about how the settlement will restrict free speech on campus, and the scariest part is that we don’t even know what the new rules are because the College won’t release the settlement,” said a Jewish Haverford student of the class of ‘28.
Lindsay Reckson, Professor of English at Haverford said, “We know the goal of this suit and settlement is not to address discrimination on campus, but rather to scare us into self-censorship. In the meantime, it is our protected right and ethical obligation as students and scholars to teach, learn, speak out, and protest against an ongoing genocide.”