In a shocking miscarriage of justice, Boston Municipal Court Judge Stephen McClenon has dismissed hate crime charges against two Harvard graduate students who allegedly harassed and assaulted a Jewish student on campus in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.

Despite clear evidence showing Ibrahim Bharmal—a former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review—and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo leading a mob that surrounded and menaced their Jewish classmate while screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!”, McClenon chose to let them off the hook, dropping the most serious charge under Massachusetts’ Civil Rights Act, which prohibits interference with a person’s right to safety and free movement.

The victim’s desperate attempts to escape the hostile crowd were widely circulated in video footage, yet McClenon disregarded the clear violation of the Jewish student’s civil rights, leaving Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo to face only a minor assault and battery charge—a move that Jewish advocacy groups say sends a dangerous message that antisemitic harassment is tolerated, if not outright excused, in America’s elite institutions.

McClenon’s ruling is just the latest example of an American legal system turning a blind eye to surging antisemitism, especially on Ivy League campuses like Harvard, which have become hotbeds of pro-Hamas extremism since the October 7 massacre that left 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 taken hostage.

Bharmal, rather than facing any real consequences, has continued to thrive at Harvard. The university never disciplined him for his actions and allowed him to remain as president of the Harvard Law Review, a prestigious position once held by former President Barack Obama. In fact, Bharmal was even rewarded with a government-funded law clerkship with the Public Defender for the District of Columbia, an agency that provides free legal defense for individuals accused of serious crimes—a bitter irony, given that he himself was accused of a hate crime.

This outrageous dismissal comes at a time when antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have skyrocketed. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported a 140% rise in antisemitic crimes in 2023, with 8,873 recorded incidents—the highest since tracking began in 1979.

From violent assaults to widespread harassment at universities, Jewish communities across the country have been under siege. And yet, time and time again, the justice system fails to hold perpetrators accountable.

Harvard itself has been at the center of the antisemitism crisis, both on campus and in court. The university recently settled two major lawsuits that accused school officials of refusing to discipline perpetrators of antisemitic harassment. Despite initially trying to dismiss the lawsuits, Harvard ultimately backed down, agreeing to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to its policies and to recognize the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity—a move that exposes the depth of the problem but does little to ensure true justice.

Judge McClenon’s decision to drop hate crime charges against Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo is not just a legal failure—it is a dangerous precedent. It emboldens those who seek to harass, intimidate, and attack Jews under the guise of “pro-Palestinian activism.”

With antisemitism at record highs, the courts must take a stand—but instead, they seem to be bowing to political pressure, allowing elite institutions and their students to operate with impunity.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)