Yeshiva U. Faces $380-Million Lawsuit from Former Students of Its High School

By Charles Huckabee
Chronicle of Higher Education
July 9, 2013

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/yeshiva-u-faces-380-million-lawsuit-from-former-students-of-its-high-school/62801

Nineteen former students of a high school that is run by Yeshiva University have filed a $380-million lawsuit against the New York university and the school, accusing administrators and teachers of covering up decades of physical and sexual abuse, The Jewish Daily Forward reported.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday, a week after the university’s chancellor and former longtime president, Rabbi Norman Lamm, announced his retirement in a letter that acknowledged having made mistakes in his response to students’ complaints of sexual abuse by administrators and faculty members at the high school. The Forward previously reported that Rabbi Lamm had allowed staff members accused of abuse to quietly leave their jobs, without reporting the accusations to law-enforcement officials or notifying their subsequent employers.

Rabbi Lamm is one of several former university administrators and trustees named as defendants in the lawsuit. He was the university’s president from 1976 to 2003.  The assaults are alleged to have taken place during the 1970s and 1980s.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in White Plains, N.Y. It alleges violations of state and federal laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars discrimination on the basis of gender by institutions that receive federal funds. Gender discrimination, it says, “includes gender-targeted sexual assaults.”

The university said in a written statement that it does not comment on pending litigation.