Columbia Student Sues ‘Doxxing Truck’ Group Toting Mobile Billboards

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — A Columbia University student is suing a nonprofit organization toting a mobile billboard around the Morningside Heights campus in recent weeks with students’ names and photos under the caption “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.”

Attorneys for Columbia University undergraduate senior Yusuf Hafez filed a lawsuit Monday in New York Supreme Court accusing the conservative nonprofit behind the truck, Accuracy in Media, Inc., of violating New York Civil Rights Law, specifically a section barring corporations from using someone’s picture in advertising without written consent.

“This conduct, authorized by AIM’s president Defendant [Adam] Guillette, has been engaged in intentionally with the goal of profiting AIM and its president by defaming and stigmatizing Plaintiff,” the complaint reads.

The lawyers add Hafez, 21, has been forced to attend classes remotely, has been unable to take at least one exam and misses out on social interactions due to a fear for his physical safety.

“Plaintiff is concerned that his academic career and future employment prospects are now at risk, as well as his safety, due to defendants’ unlawful, outrageous and defamatory conduct," the lawsuit reads.

A request for comment from Washington D.C.-based Accuracy in Media was not immediately returned Monday afternoon.

In addition to the truck display, Accuracy in Media reportedly bought a domain name in Hafez’s name on Oct. 23, creating the website yusufhafez.com and using the student’s name and photograph to “engage in a campaign falsely stating that [Hafez] was the leader of a student organization that signed onto a letter regarding the current conflict in Israel/Palestine,” per the complaint.

However, the lawsuit contends Hafez was not the leader of a student organization at the time the letter was signed and had “no association” to the letter.

Hafez, an Egyptian-American Muslim, joined the Arab cultural group Turath at the university after he transferred as a sophomore in 2021, according to the complaint. He served as president of the group from September 2022 until the following May.

While the yusufhafez.com website was apparently live as of the complaint filing, it appears to have been taken down later on Monday.

Accuracy In Media's own website names Hafez, alongside a swath of students from the Columbia University Muslim Students Association, Conflict Resolution Collective, SIPA Human Rights Working Group, SIPA Palestine Working Group and other organizations, under the banner "Columbia Hates Jews." On the same page, the website urges users to "send one message that goes to Columbia's Board of Trustees. Tell them to take action against these despicable, hateful students."

The so-called 'doxxing truck' began popping up near campus around Oct. 25, according to the complaint. Similar trucks have appeared on Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania campuses since September.

At least one Columbia student said via X that students have been reporting the truck to campus public safety and the New York Police Department, but "nothing has been done bc 'the truck is driving on [a] public road and we can't stop a truck from driving' according to one officer I spoke to."

In response to vandalism to the billboard, Guillette — a former Project Veritas vice president — tweeted last month that it would perhaps "be safer to send the billboards directly to their parents homes from now on. And perhaps I should visit their campus to see exactly what's going on ... thoughts?"

Guillette later appeared on campus, according to the lawsuit and social media photos, to "continue his defamatory advertising campaign and, upon information and belief, to solicit donations," the complaint reads.

Hafez is seeking an order barring Accuracy In Media from using his name and photo in future billboards, plus compensatory and punitive damages.