LAW OFFICE OF KAREN D.

HURVITZ
34 TANGLEWOOD DRIVE
CONCORD, MA 01742
(617) 513-3365

April 27, 2020

DEMAND PURSUANT TO G.L.c93A

BY CERTIFIED MAIL and

REGULAR MAIL and EMAIL
President Marty Meehan
University of Massachusetts
President’s Office
One Beacon St., 31st Fl.
Boston MA 02108

Dear Sir:

We represent Louis Shenker. We are writing you pursuant to G.L. c.93A(9)(3) to apprise
you of the unfair and deceptive business acts and practices committed against him by
you, by the University of Massachusetts, as well as by its faculty and staff within the
scope of their employment, and of the damages that Louis has suffered as a result.

Louis matriculated at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus (UMass Amherst)

in 2017, entering into a contractual relationship with the University of Massachusetts,
paying its tuition fees, and incurring significant student debt in the process. Louis was
aware that the University of Massachusetts is a public university, and that under federal
and Massachusetts laws, certain rights are guaranteed when its faculty and staff interact
with students. Louis therefore expected that the University of Massachusetts would
protect his freedom to express his views on campus. He further expected that the
University of Massachusetts would protect him from discrimination by its faculty and
staff based on his Jewish religion and race.

In deciding to attend UMass Amherst, Louis relied on representations made in the UMass
Amherst Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment, And Related Interpersonal Violence
(“Non-Discrimination Policy”), which expressly prohibits discrimination “in any aspect
of the access to, admission, or treatment of students in its programs and activities” based
on several specific classifications, including religion, race, and “political belief or
affiliation.” In the Non-Discrimination Policy,

The University affirms its commitment to provide a welcoming and respectful

work and educational environment, in which all individuals within the University

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community may benefit from each other’s experiences and foster mutual respect
and appreciation of divergent views. The University will not be tolerant of
conduct which violates rights guaranteed by the law, the University Policy
Against Discrimination, Harrassment [sic], and Related Interpersonal Violence,
and/or other University policies.

In the Non-Discrimination Policy, UMass Amherst promises that when discrimination is

“brought to the attention of the University, the University will take actions appropriately
to respond to, stop, remedy, and prevent the reoccurrence of any such discrimination.” In
cases of discrimination by faculty or staff, UMass Amherst promises that it will take
those actions according to the UMass Amherst Equal Opportunity Office Grievance
Procedures.

In addition, UMass Amherst maintains Student Demonstration Guidelines that assure its
students that they can exercise their rights to free expression on campus without
interference. The Guidelines state: “All students, undergraduate and graduate, have a
right to demonstrate on university premises.” The Student Demonstration Guidelines also
describe the rights of counter demonstrators: “A protest, demonstration, or event on
campus may invite another form of protest. When these occasions arise, all parties have
a right to expression that must not be obstructed.”

At a rally on the UMass Amherst campus on December 6, 2018, university students,

faculty, and staff repeatedly violated Louis’ rights as guaranteed to him by law and by his
contractual relationship with the University of Massachusetts. Louis reported these
violations to the University of Massachusetts Police Department (UMPD), which
determined that Louis was the victim of larceny, assault, and assault and battery,
motivated by anti-White and anti-Jewish bias. A UMPD officer who had been assigned to
monitor the rally prepared a comprehensive Incident Report (attached), summarizing
what happened. It stated, in relevant part:

Shenker’s hat was a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. He held a
sign emblazoned with a political sentiment. This display provoked the group to
undertake efforts to obstruct Shenker’s efforts to display the sign and to prevent
his marching alongside of the GEO group.

Although the events at the rally were brought to its attention, the University of
Massachusetts willfully refused to take any actions whatsoever to respond to, stop,
remedy, and prevent the reoccurrence of discrimination based on Louis’s political beliefs,
religion, and race, or of interference with his right to counter-demonstrate by university
students, faculty, and staff.

Instead, on October 13, 2019, UMass Amherst Associate Professor of Political Science
Maryann Barakso, Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science Lauren
McCarthy, and Assistant Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Kelly
Gray, acting within the scope of their employment, came to an agreement that Louis’s

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“views are not the kind we want to cultivate at the University.” They formulated a plan
to terminate Louis’s contractual relationship with the university by defaming him as a
racist. The faculty and administrator employees then recruited graduate student
employees active in the Graduate Employee Union (GEO) to help with the plan.

Within a month, the faculty, administrator, and graduate student employees set their plan
in motion after Louis’s counter demonstration at the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
(BDS) event, held at the UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center on November 12, 2019.
University employees Barakso, McCarthy, Gray, Tyler Alan, Anna-Claire Simpson, and
Beth Peller used Louis’s peaceful expression of his political and religious beliefs at the
BDS event as a pretext to incite a violent harassment campaign against him, to file false
charges of hate crimes against him, and to call for him to be expelled from the university.

The university had long been on notice that the BDS event and its organizers were likely
to violate its Non-Discrimination Policy. Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy had expressed
concern that the event “could very well alienate many of our Jewish students” because
the BDS movement “is considered by many as anti-Semitic.” Chancellor Subbaswamy
previously said, “We believe that academic boycotts undermine the fundamental
principles of free expression and inquiry that are central to our mission of teaching,
research and service.”

However, the University of Massachusetts disclaimed all responsibility for anti-Semitic

harassment both at this event, and at a previous BDS event that occurred on May 4, 2019.
Insisting, “The University remains firmly opposed to academic boycotts of any kind,
including BDS,” the university claimed that its role in these events was limited purely to
a business context as a party to a commercial transaction, and had been entirely outside of
the university’s legislatively mandated, taxpayer-funded academic mission. It denied the
obvious causal relationship between the anti-Semitic harassment at the event and
subsequent anti-Semitic harassment on campus. Importantly, it tried to divorce itself from
complicity by claiming that:

the event scheduled for May 4 on the UMass Amherst campus is being presented
by a private foundation. The foundation has, as many non-UMass organizations
regularly do, rented space on campus to host its panel discussion. No university or
taxpayer funds are being used to support the event.

After Louis expressed his belief that that the university’s commercial activity as a venue
for BDS events was creating a hostile academic environment for Jewish students,
university employees, as well as persons affiliated with this private foundation
intentionally inflicted severe emotional distress on Louis and caused him various other
injuries in retaliation. Hundreds of flyers of Louis’s face were posted around campus as
part of university employees Barakso, McCarthy, Gray, Alan, Simpson, and Peller’s
campaign against him—comparable to extrajudicial wanted posters aimed at a dense

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community of tens of thousands of students. Although the flyers were reported to UMPD,
the University of Massachusetts did nothing to protect Louis.

Photos of the flyers taken at various places around the campus went viral on UMass-
connected social media. “[W]atch out for this pussy ass bitch,” read one caption on
Snapchat, “if you see him smack the dogshit out him”. The Overheard at UMass
Facebook group administrator, “Jevin Dames Reilly,” posted: “@UMassDining WHERE
IS MY “NAZI” WEEK, I’D LIKE TO PREORDER THIS MAN’S HEAD ON A
PLATE.” UMass Amherst graduate student employee Tyler Alan, acting within the scope
of his employment, sent out a mass email to the UMass Amherst English Department,
accusing Louis of being a white supremacist and posing a deadly threat to people at the
department. As a result of this campaign, Louis was afraid to show his face on campus,
and had to leave Western Massachusetts entirely on several occasions throughout
November and December 2019. Fear of physical harm from students incited to “smack
the dogshit out of him” by the flyers, and other such threats, still dictates where Louis
does or does not go.

As a result of being hounded off of campus by University of Massachusetts employees, it

was impossible and too risky for Louis to attend the last several classes of the semester or
to take his final exams. Louis, through counsel, repeatedly informed Ryan Morse,
Christina Landeta-Burdick, Patricia Cardoso-Erase, and the University of Massachusetts
of the situation, and implored the university to protect him. Counsel noted that the
campaign against Louis had “the intent and result of his being driven off campus and
deprived of his education.” Counsel warned Ryan Morse, Christina Landeta-Burdick,
Patricia Cardoso-Erase, and the university: “You have let this [constructive] expulsion
take place without intervention.” Ryan Morse, Christina Landeta-Burdick, Patricia
Cardoso-Erase, and the university failed and refused to respond to Louis’s counsel, and
failed and refused to take appropriate actions to respond to stop, remedy, and prevent the
reoccurrence of the violent and discriminatory harassment campaign against Louis.
Instead, Jonathan Connary wrote to Louis to tell him that he, instead of his victimizers, is
being investigated for misconduct.  The university then officially expelled him.

The above conduct was unfair and deceptive, beyond all possible bounds of decency, a
willful violation of Louis’s legal rights, of Louis’s contractual relationship with UMass
Amherst, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Policy Against Discrimination,
Harassment, And Related Interpersonal Violence, and of the UMass Amherst Equal
Opportunity Office Grievance Procedures.

Louis’s reputation was severely damaged by the University’s instigation of the malicious
and false campaign against him. He has lost friends and acquaintances. He has lost the
ability to finish his education at UMass Amherst, along with the attendant loss of future
income and other benefits of the degree that UMass Amherst promised in exchange for
his tuition fees. He has suffered psychological damage. He has a criminal record. He has
suffered economic damages in the amount of approximately twenty-seven million dollars.

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UMass Amherst’s promises of non-discrimination and a welcoming educational

environment to Louis turned out to be fraudulent misrepresentations, over-ridden by the

university’s business concerns as an event venue. Louis was never informed that his
continued enrollment at UMass Amherst depended on his having “the kind of” political
and religious views that university employees “want to cultivate at the university.” Louis
never would have agreed to matriculate at UMass Amherst if he had known that its
promises of free expression and appreciation for divergent views, which the university
gives to students in exchange for their tuition dollars, were fraudulent.

The actions of the University of Massachusetts and its agents and employees in
fraudulently misrepresenting the terms of its contract with Louis, in intentionally
inflicting emotional distress on Louis, and in violating Louis’s legal rights, both in the
context of its contractual relationship with Louis and while conducting its event venue
business, constitute knowing, willful, and intentional violations of G.L.93A. We are
preparing suit, and will be seeking treble damages against you.

Very truly yours,

Karen D Hurvitz Ilya I. Feoktistov

Americans for Peace and Tolerance
15 Main St., Suite 118
Watertown, MA 01742
617-462-7938
if@peaceandtolerance.org

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