Students 4 Mental Health Justice

In May 2025, a group of Harvard undergraduates filed a class action suit against Harvard University, claiming the University systemically discriminates against students with mental health disabilities. Filing anonymously under the name Students 4 Mental Health Justice (S4MHJ),  the five students chronicled experiences of exclusion, coercion, and is seeking changes to Harvard’s confidentiality, student leave policies, and biased treatment of its students in crisis, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Among other claims, students argue that Harvard has a practice of denying students access to campus and dorms in the aftermath of mental health-related hospitalizations.

Harvard was sued in 2015 by the family of an undergraduate who died by suicide on Harvard’s campus. That wrongful death suit has yet to be settled and there is an assumption that many of Harvard’s current policies and actions reflect a desire to avoid any liability for failure to protect students experiencing suicidal ideation.

While Harvard’s lawyers filed a yet unresolved motion to dismiss the suit based on an alleged lack of legal standing to sue, it would not be surprising to see the University settle with S4MHJ, based upon the experience of Yale University. Yale, too, was sued by a student advocacy group, Elis for Rachael, citing similar complaints. Their well-documented complaint resulted in an eventual settlement whereby Yale agreed to change their leave-taking policies and make more significant and flexible accommodations for students experiencing mental health challenges. The Yale lawsuit was filed following the death b y suicide of a first year student who risked losing her medical coverage if she took a leave from Yale to address her mental health.