MIT has asked a court to dismiss the first count of a lawsuit filed against it by Michel Anne-Frederic DeGraff, a linguistics professor at the university. DeGraff in March sued MIT, the U.S. House Committee on Education & Workforce and chair of the committee Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) for violating his First Amendment and civil rights by targeting his anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian speech. DeGraff has asked the court to order the committee to stop targeting him in reports or seeking records about him and to award him monetary relief.
DeGraff was named in a March 17, 2026 report from committee staff, “How Campuses Become Hotbeds: The Rise of Radical Antisemitism on College Campuses.” The report accuses faculty and student groups across the country of fueling antisemitism on college campuses. DeGraff, who had served as professor of linguistics at MIT since 1996 before being moved into the School of Humanities in 2024, is singled out for his usage of the term “[Zionist] mind infection” and for allegedly harassing William Sussman, a former doctoral student and visible pro-Israel student leader on campus. Sussman had posted online in condemnation of that phrase.
DeGraff said the term “mind infection,” was coined in a 2006 speech Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli scholar and former professor of linguistics and education at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and outspoken peace activist. He said she had published books and articles arguing that “Israeli textbooks basically infect the minds of Israeli children, turning them racist against Palestinians, but also against categories of Jews viewed as lesser, such as the Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews,” DeGraff told Cambridge Day. Before the report, in June 2025, Sussman, along with MIT mathematics instructor Lior Alon and others, filed a federal lawsuit against MIT and DeGraff, alleging that the school had failed to address what the plaintiffs described as a “hostile antisemitic climate” on campus following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. The complaint also accused DeGraff of targeting Sussman and Alon through online and in-person harassment for their pro-Israel advocacy and Jewish identities. In January, a federal judge dismissed most of the claims made in that lawsuit, including all those against DeGraff.
Despite the outcome of the case, which the committee notes in its March 17 report, DeGraff said committee reports and letters continue to reference him as an example of alleged faculty-driven antisemitism.
DeGraff also argues in his lawsuit that because committee members hold personal biases against him and others engaging in protected pro-Palestinian activity, they are no longer immune from prosecution ordinarily provided to Congress to protect them from litigation for their legislative actions. “Congress has the right to investigate and make sure that MIT, which is accepting federal funds, respects civil rights laws, like Title VI,” DeGraff said, “But what they are doing in my case fulfills no valid legislative purposes, and what we have done in the complaint is to show this.”
Rep. Walberg’s office stated that the committee has the constitutional authority and duty to conduct oversight of institutions that accept federal dollars, and that “the Committee looks forward to defending its authority in court.”
DeGraff’s initial complaint was filed on March 28, with summons to all parties issued two days later on March 30. Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson of the Massachusetts District Court handled the initial proceedings before the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Allison Dale Burroughs. On June 5, both MIT and the committee filed motions to have the complaint dismissed.
The committee has centered its challenge around the Speech and Debate Clause of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which protects members of Congress from prosecution while undertaking their legislative duties, in this case, investigating antisemitism on college campuses. While DeGraff’s original filing argues against this immunity, the motion further contends that this protection means MIT cannot be sued for violating DeGraff’s First Amendment rights because the congressional defendants are essential to the claim.
After the filing, DeGraff in an email evoked the McCarthy era, saying at that time “Congress used the Speech and Debate Clause for their witch hunts.”
MIT discrimination alleged
DeGraff is separately also suing MIT on claims of discrimination and breach of contract, as well as violating his First Amendment rights. Private institutions cannot violate the First Amendment, so a crucial element will be whether he can establish that MIT was a state actor because it was complying with the House Committee.
MIT’s move to dismiss argued it cannot be a “state actor” because document requests from the committee have been voluntary, rejecting claims that the university acted under congressional coercion. However, in a letter sent in March seeking ‘non-public’ information regarding DeGraff, Rep. Walberg wrote that the committee would pursue “the use of compulsory process” if documents were not provided.
MIT’s motion did not address the claims of discriminatory treatment or breach of DeGraff’s civil rights, asking that the claims be considered serially.
MIT also asked for the First Amendment count to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that DeGraff would not be able to file the claim again. The committee is not seeking a permanent dismissal of the claim.
Course denied
At the core of DeGraff’s legal claims against MIT is his former department’s decision not to allow him to teach a fall 2024 seminar on “language and linguistics in decolonization and liberation struggles.” As part of the course, DeGraff had hoped to cover postcolonial linguistics, and examine the role of language in issues of human rights and social justice.
Danny Fox, linguistics section head at MIT, questioned whether the course “fit” with the overall linguistics curriculum.
Haynes Miller an professor emeritus of mathematics at MIT, who started the MIT-Haiti Initiative with DeGraff, said DeGraff had previously given similar seminars, such as one in 2021 entitled “Linguistics and social justice: Language, education & human rights.” Miller said the seminars explore “the use of language to suppress liberation movements.”
After an ad hoc committee review of the course and a months-long exchange of emails in which DeGraff alleged misconduct by department leadership – some of which were sent to broad swaths of linguistics faculty and students – he was not allowed to teach the seminar. DeGraff ended up holding a speaker series, which some students received credit for from MIT. He said such a review process was a first for anyone in his department during his 28 years at the University.
MIT eventually labeled DeGraff’s messages and social media postings on the topic as misconduct. This resulted in further punishment, including removal from his academic unit.
Fox declined to comment on the matter, citing MIT policy. He did, however, point to a March 2025 letter signed by several linguists, including MIT alumnus and Hebrew University Professor Luka Crnič, that stated there was no evidence the department had curtailed academic freedoms. It was addressed to Yale Law Professor Ash Bâli and University of South Carolina Professor Emerita Laurie Brand, who had sent a letter to the MIT administration in defense of DeGraff.
In an email to linguistics faculty and students explaining the course’s rejection, Fox said “our decision was driven by questions about the course’s fit within the linguistics curriculum, and challenges around disciplinary expertise in topics relevant to the conflict in the Middle East.”
DeGraff’s complaint also alleged MIT engaged in a broader pattern of retaliation and discriminatory treatment, including withholding a salary raise in 2024 after he failed to meet his required course load, which was extended after his emails were labeled as misconduct. He was also removed from the linguistics department, after which, he alleges, his salary was frozen.
“I have had to spend so much time in the past two years fighting for my right to teach and speak, that I’ve not been able to do the amount of work I should be doing for my research, my own work for Haiti,” said DeGraff, who has promoted the use of Haitian Creole in schools and expanding access to Kreyòl-based education in Haiti.
MIT declined to comment other than to say, “We will respond to the lawsuit in court.”
This story was updated to note that U.S. District Judge Allison Dale Burroughs will oversee the lawsuit.
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