Williams College, a nearly 235-year-old private liberal arts school in Williamstown, Mass., is denying an Orthodox Jewish student proper religious accommodations, according to a complaint that the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday.

The complaint, which was shared with JNS, alleges that the college denied requests from the student, whose name is redacted, to receive a physical key to his dormitory to use on Shabbat, when his faith prohibits using an electronic key card.

The school rejected his request, citing vague “security” concerns, per the complaint, which means he has to wait outside his dorm building until another student arrives and lets him in. (JNS sought comment from the college.)

Williams College suggested that during Shabbat, the student could knock on the door of a campus office and ask for an escort to his building. The complaint described that recommendation as “equally, if not more, uncertain, inconvenient and lengthy than the untenable process he was already enduring.”

In February, the student met with Maud Mandel, the president of the college and a Judaic studies scholar, about the issue. She denied his request and said that using a physical key would “trigger an alarm,” per the complaint.

“He’s locked out of his dorm in the freezing cold on a regular basis, sometimes over an hour, and made repeated requests to the college to figure out a way to rectify this,” Rachel Balaban, senior litigation counsel at the Brandeis Center, told JNS.

“Nothing was done about it, so we felt we needed to pursue this on behalf of the student and other students in his position at Williams,” Balaban said. “This student’s ability to exercise, freely, his religion should not be incompatible with his equally important right to fully participate in residential life at Williams.”

The complaint also alleges that the school denied the student’s request for proper kosher meals and gave him vegan dinners instead that “were nutritionally inadequate and often so unappealing that he found them inedible.”

Those meals were also “noticeably different” from vegan options given to non-kosher-keeping students, according to the complaint.

Pre-packaged kosher meals at the college’s Jewish Religious Center, which does not follow Orthodox standards in its kitchen, have made the student “violently ill on several occasions,” the complaint alleges.

The student has to find kosher meals that are consistent with his faith at off-campus restaurants and at a local Chabad center on Friday evenings, the complaint states.

According to the complaint, the student told the college about his need for kosher food before he accepted its admission offer. He was told that if the school’s available options didn’t meet his needs that he shouldn’t attend Williams, according to the complaint.

The college violated Title VIII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, known as the Fair Housing Act, when it comes to the student’s unmet needs for a working key and kosher food, according to the complaint.

“Being provided these services in connection with housing that are unequal and inferior to those provided to other students because of his religion is a violation of the Fair Housing Act, and is a serious concern for the Brandeis Center and the student,” Balaban told JNS.

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