A Jewish civil rights organization is calling on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate Williams College, alleging it violated the Fair Housing Act by neglecting an Orthodox Jewish student’s religious dietary and housing needs.
The complaint to HUD marks a first for the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which has pursued multiple lawsuits against colleges and universities related to campus antisemitism in recent years and advocated for drawing on civil rights laws like Title VI to defend Jewish students. But this is its first time invoking the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination based on race or skin color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.
The complaint alleges that the liberal arts college in Massachusetts treated Orthodox Jewish “religious practice as incompatible with residential life on campus” and made the student “feel unwelcome as a full-fledged and equal member of its campus community due to his religious beliefs.” It urges the Office for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to dig into the issue and calls on Williams College to ensure students can observe Sabbath and Jewish holidays and keep kosher in the dorms. If the government takes up the case, it could set a precedent for Fair Housing Act complaints against other colleges that fail to provide these types of religious accommodations in their residence halls.
According to the complaint, the college requires first-year students to live in the residence halls and purchase campus meal plans. The complainant, a freshman at Williams, requested a physical key to his building because Orthodox Jews refrain from using electric devices, such as electronic key cards, on Friday nights and Saturdays as part of their Sabbath observance. His request was denied twice.
Instead, the college proposed he walk to a campus office building and knock until a staff member heard him to escort him to his dorm. In practice, the student was locked outside his residence hall waiting to be let in by other students, including during the cold winter months, the complaint said. The challenge of getting back in the building sometimes deterred him from leaving his dorm on the Sabbath at all.
Meals on campus also proved a challenge for the student. Before enrolling, the student and his father asked campus staff about kosher dietary options and were told the college could provide vegan meals, or he could cook his own meals in the Jewish Religious Center’s kitchen. But the center doesn’t adhere to Orthodox kosher standards. A staff member reportedly told the student at that meeting that he “should not come to Williams” if he couldn’t “deal with” the food options available, the complaint read.
The student claimed the vegan meals provided to him were less nutritious and offered less variety than those provided to non-kosher vegan students—and prepackaged kosher meals from the Jewish Religious Center made him “violently ill on several occasions”—causing him to spend extra money on food from off-campus restaurants. The student reached out to dining hall staff and administrators regarding his Sabbath observance and dietary concerns.
Williams College presented the students with “an impossible dilemma,” choosing between a “sincerely held religious belief” and “the ability to fully participate in residential life in their community,” said Rachel Balaban, senior litigation counsel and interim director of legal initiatives at the Brandeis Center.
She emphasized that being a first-year student trying to adjust to and participate in campus life is anxiety-provoking on its own.
“For him to not have full and equal access to his home at the college … in what can be a stressful first-year college experience when you’re in a new environment is a serious situation,” she said. “The student tried to resolve it repeatedly himself … And we wanted to make sure the college understands this needs to be taken seriously for this student and for other students to make sure everyone feels included and welcomed at Williams College.”
Meike Kaan, chief communications officer at Williams College, responded in an email to Inside Higher Ed that the institution has “no tolerance for antisemitism or discrimination.” The campus has 220 Jewish students, and the college knows of two who identify as Orthodox.
“We are devoted to ensuring that all students have access to appropriate living spaces, dining options, and our full range of learning opportunities,” Kaan wrote. “The college’s leaders and chaplains are strongly committed to working with students and their families to address student concerns. We welcome the opportunity to continue that dialogue with the student and the Brandeis Center in order to ensure a welcoming and inclusive educational environment.”
She added that the college is “engaged in constructive conversations with the Brandeis Center to identify and evaluate possible solutions to address the student’s concerns.”
Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Craig Trainor said in a statement that the department received the letter and will review it carefully.
“The Trump Administration has done more in its first year to address the scourge of unlawful antisemitic discrimination than all prior administrations combined,” Trainor added. “Our commitment to protect the fair housing rights of all Americans is unwavering.”
A New Legal Approach
While it’s a new move for the Brandeis Center, Balaban said, going to HUD seemed like the natural next step in the Williams College case.
“Under the Fair Housing Act, housing providers cannot make housing unavailable—or the terms and conditions related to housing or services in connection with housing unavailable—to someone based on their religion or another protected identity, and here, that’s what’s happened,” Balaban said.
She believes the federal civil rights complaint might spur the college to take action to support the student without having to go through a lawsuit. The goal is to have the federal agency investigate and work with the college to “reach a speedy and just resolution” and implement policies and procedures that prevent similar situations in the future for religious students. And if a resolution isn’t reached, HUD can charge the college with a violation and apply pressure.
The challenges described in the complaint aren’t uncommon. A 2023 study of 122 universities found that fewer than half of them had religious accommodation policies, and policies that did exist weren’t especially comprehensive. Dorm key-card access is a frequent problem for Orthodox Jewish students, particularly on campuses with small communities. Jewish and Muslim students often struggle to get religious dietary restrictions met in campus dining halls, though kosher and halal meal options have become more widespread over the last decade.
Another Jewish student at Williams College, Ariella Scheer, wrote in an op-ed last week that she stopped keeping kosher because it proved too difficult on campus and her nutrition suffered. She also didn’t want to isolate herself from her peers by making all of her own meals at the Jewish Religious Center.
“Right now, the college is failing to send a message reflecting its commitment to inclusion,” she wrote. “Instead, the lack of kosher options signals that observant Jews need to sit outside the central life of the college if they are to remain committed to their faith.”
Balaban said she hopes the complaint will spark self-reflection at other higher education institutions about how they accommodate religious needs in their residence halls.
The complaint could motivate institutions to “take their own proactive steps to … make sure students have full access to their housing, nutritious kosher meals,” she said. “And if other issues are brought to our attention at colleges, the Brandeis Center takes this very seriously and would take steps to make sure this is not occurring on other college campuses.”
