Amicus Brief: Torres v. Carlson

A group of pro-Hamas Columbia University students conspired to take over Hamilton Hall. They stormed the building at night in masks and encountered two janitors, Mariano Torres and Lester Wilson. The mob attacked, berated, shoved, and shouted at Torres and Wilson. The janitors were told they were “Jew-lovers” who “worked for the Jews,” and that they were “Zionists.” They considered jumping out the window but worked their way out through the crowd while being attacked.

Torres and Wilson filed suit against the marauders under the modern version of legislation that was passed during Reconstruction to go after conspiracies to violate rights. The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims partially out of a mistaken notion that the statute required them to allege that they are members of the class of people against which defendants’ conspiracy was directed. When it found that they were not the objects of the conspiracy and not part of the relevant protected class—because they’re not Jewish—it concluded that they had no claim. 

Now on appeal to the Second Circuit, the Manhattan Institute has filed a brief in support. We argue that the district court misread and incorrectly limited the statute. The law was originally passed to deal with conspiracies to deny civil rights carried out by organizations like the KKK. But if the Klan conspired to burn down a black polling place to stop voting, and the fire then spread to an uninvolved white person's home, the white person could sue under the plain text of the statute and Supreme Court precedent. If the occupation of Hamilton Hall was a conspiracy against civil rights, the victims of that conspiracy are not limited to members of a protected class. 

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

Trevor Burrus is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

With thanks to associate Eleanor Wachtel