Northwestern University did not discriminate against a local Chabad house when it cut ties with the religious institution, a federal appeals court ruled.
On Nov. 6, U.S. Court of Appeals Circuit Judge Richard Posner in Chicago upheld the dismissal of a September 2012 lawsuit alleging that the university had severed relations with the Tannenbaum Chabad House in Evanston, Ill., and its director, Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein, for anti-Semitic and religious reasons.
Northwestern had cut ties with the Tannenbaum Chabad House that month following reports that the rabbi had served underage students wine and hard alcohol.
In its lawsuit, Tannenbaum Chabad claimed that the university disaffiliated with it while campus fraternities and sororities also were guilty of underage drinking.
“The decision simply disregards the actual record before the court, and instead points to Wikipedia articles and YouTube videos to support its wild guesses as to what happened at the Chabad House,” Jonathan Lubin, co-counsel on the original lawsuit, said in a statement. — jta