PHILADELPHIA — While much attention was on antisemitism complaints at the University of Pennsylvania over the last year and a half, the much smaller Haverford College was weathering a storm of its own.

A group called Jews at Haverford, including several students, filed a federal lawsuit alleging the college was indifferent to complaints about antisemitism. Haverford investigated an Israeli-born professor for his remarks and more than once he has had to assure his wife he would not kill himself because of the attacks on him, according to the lawsuit. And when an official from the Anti-Defamation League came to campus to give an "Antisemitism 101" talk, protesters outside banged on the windows and on cowbells and pots, and several inside stood and talked over him — in the presence of college administrators.

"We were aghast at the problem," said Lori Lowenthal Marcus, an attorney who filed the lawsuit — which was dismissed but has since been refiled with an amended complaint. "We tried various ways to inform the college that there was an antisemitism problem and it needed to be addressed and we were very much rebuffed and ignored."

Haverford, a 1,472-student, highly selective liberal arts school on the Main Line, was the only local college to receive an F on the most recent report card by the ADL for its response to antisemitism — a rating given to less than 10% of schools nationwide. The ADL's methodology for categorizing antisemitism has been questioned, and critics have argued that criticism of the state of Israel and its government have been wrongly conflated with antisemitism.

But the F rating caught the attention of the congressional Committee on Education and Workforce, which has called Haverford president Wendy Raymond to testify Wednesday about the school's response to antisemitism. The presidents of California Polytechnic State University and DePaul University will also appear at the hearing, called "Beyond the Ivy League: Stopping the Spread of Antisemitism on American Campuses."

"These antisemitic incidents, coupled with Haverford's failure to confront, address, and mitigate them, raise the specter that Haverford is currently in violation of federal civil rights laws and subjecting its Jewish students to unlawful discrimination," the committee's Republican chairs wrote in an April 21 letter to Haverford leaders.

Former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill testified before the same committee in December 2023 and resigned days later amid a bipartisan backlash. Magill was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people would violate Penn's code of conduct, and answered: "It is a context-dependent decision."

Raymond, a molecular biologist who has led the college for nearly six years, in a message to the campus Friday acknowledged the college "came up short" in dealing with the conflict and said both she and Haverford can do better.

"To Jewish members of our community who felt as if the College was not there for you, I am sorry that my actions and my leadership let you down," she said.

Some Haverford faculty — including those who feel that the campus has no antisemitism problem and that the college is the latest school to be under attack by right-wing lawmakers using the tensions to further their agenda — are worried.

The Haverford chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a group of nine Jewish faculty and staff, and more than 50 Jewish students at Haverford have all written letters to the committee or issued statements.

"We are all deeply concerned by how you are weaponizing our pain and anguish for your own purposes ...," the students wrote to the congressional committee. "It is a blatant assault on our Black, Brown, transgender, queer, non-citizen, and Palestinian peers."

The faculty and staff group, noting they are diverse with some supporting Israel and others not, said they "do not feel that our college is a hotbed of antisemitism."

"We are concerned that a longtime set of struggles within the Jewish community ... are now being adjudicated in a Christian nationalist public sphere, with some of our fellow Jews at Haverford and beyond using Christians who don't actually care about our community to win punishing victories over other members of our Jewish community," wrote the group.

Investigations, a lawsuit, and high tensions on campus

Barak Mendelsohn, the Israeli-born professor named in the lawsuit, said the college leadership must go and called the upcoming hearing "a present we did not expect."

"For the last year and half, we were trying any way possible to get the leadership of the college to see how wrong they are but nothing worked," said Mendelsohn, a political science professor and terrorism scholar. "They still refuse to admit there is an antisemitism problem. Our culture cannot remain one that welcomes all minorities except for Jews."

Mendelsohn contends that he and some Jewish students who supported Israel's right to exist were boycotted and harassed after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

A month after the Hamas attack, Mendelsohn tweeted that Haverford has "a Jewish problem" and that its student body is "led by Hamas apologists."

"If I'm a parent to a Jewish student, I will not send them to Haverford College," he wrote.

More than 600 Haverford and Bryn Mawr alumni, students, and parents signed a petition, calling on the college to fire him, he said, including someone who signed it Josef Mengele, the Nazi officer nicknamed the "Angel of Death."

Mendelsohn said the college investigated him for tweets critical of those who signed a ceasefire petition and an email exchange he had with a student and ultimately concluded his behavior was "inconsistent with the college's expectations of its faculty," according to the lawsuit.

Yet, others in the Haverford community who posted or liked tweets seemingly in support of Hamas and who chanted "From Gaza to Lebanon, Israel will soon be gone," faced no discipline, Mendelsohn contends. The lawsuit also refers to a professor who as a matter of moral principle notes on his website he will not write recommendation letters for "opportunities that violate the cultural and academic boycott of Israel."

More than once, according to the lawsuit, Mendelsohn has had to assure his wife he would not kill himself because of the attacks on him.

"Hamas sympathizers on campus masquerading under the banner of 'student activism' have accosted Jewish students in their classes and other campus spaces, calling for the eradication of Israel, accusing Jewish students of racism and support for genocide, shouting antisemitic slogans, occupying buildings and other common spaces to impede the movement of anyone who does not publicly express agreement with their views," the amended complaint states.

U.S. District Judge Gerald Austin McHugh threw out the initial complaint in January, saying while there were some problematic examples cited, they were "diluted by instances that no reasonable person could construe as intentional discrimination" and that plaintiffs failed to show "severe or pervasive harassment."

A hearing was held on the amended complaint in April, but no ruling has been issued.

Jeff Landau, a retired banker from Livingston, N.J., whose daughter, now a Haverford alumna, is part of the lawsuit against the college, said he welcomed the congressional hearing.

"I would like them to be on the map and be held accountable for all of these actions," he said.

Landau recalled how his daughter, a basketball player, was forced to cancel an antisemitism awareness event she planned to hold before a game after college officials warned her the team may have to forfeit if protesters took over the court. He said the college could have instead arranged for security.

Religion professor Naomi Koltun-Fromm, who heads the religion department, acknowledged instances where Haverford could have done better. There were students who wouldn't work with other students because they were Zionists and in isolated cases professors granted their requests.

"That shouldn't have happened," she said. "But people were so overly sensitive."

Of the ADL event where protesters interrupted with cow bells and spoke over the presenter, she said it was members of another Jewish student group who protested, and the speaker ultimately was able to finish his remarks.

Some faculty felt student protesters should not be disciplined because that was tantamount to shutting down their right to express themselves, she said. But others thought "this was one step too far," she said.

"Can I come and bang on your classroom windows," she said, "because I don't like what you're teaching?"

'I wish her luck'

In her letter to the campus community issued Friday, Raymond said the college has revised its policies "to clarify that Haverford does not tolerate hate, discrimination, bias, or harassment," strengthened safety practices, and has begun work with students to revise their honor code, which some have charged does not protect students who have raised claims of antisemitism or fairly address bullying by groups of students. Haverford students have a self-governance code, a 165-year tradition.

Raymond said she also is working with groups, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the ADL and is submitting materials to the ADL in the hope they will "reassess our 'report card' grade, which we feel does not fully represent the current state of our community."

Koltun-Fromm said faculty support Raymond.

"I wish her luck," Koltun-Fromm said. "None of us would want to be in her shoes."

Koltun-Fromm said the college does not have a rampant antisemitism problem, but there is a cultural problem. There are groups of students who are unwilling to tolerate others' views and then cut out those who differ from them.

"The kids who supported Israel in any way felt shunned," she said.

But tensions have calmed this year, she said, and thrusting the college into a congressional spotlight will not help.

"We have been trying hard all year to figure out what went wrong, how does this relate to who we are as a college and how can we fix it," she said. "To relitigate what went on last year in public ... is not going to help."

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