University Apologizes For Inaction After Student’s Antisemitic Abuser Pleads Guilty

Nearly a full year since college soccer player Noam Nedivi came forward with his story of antisemitic abuse, his university is apologizing for not only its failure to protect the student, but also actions that derailed his college experience.

Lawrence Technological University actually kicked Nedivi off his team and declined to protect him from a roommate who subjected him to months of antisemitic verbal and physical abuse. The Illinois school has now formally apologized after his former roommate and teammate, Zavier Chimienti, pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and misdemeanor domestic violence in October. 

The ordeal, first reported by The Daily Wire nearly a year ago, included Chimienti harassing Nedivi with anti-Jewish slurs, Nazi salutes, and full-on physical abuse. 

“Last year, a Jewish student reported verbal and physical antisemitic abuse committed by another student on campus,” LTU’s administration wrote in a press release. “The student’s complaint should have been handled better. In that way, we failed him and the LTU community, and caused unnecessary pain to our student. We apologize to our student for the hurt caused him [sic].”

Nedivi told The Daily Wire that he is relieved the situation has come to an end, but he’s far from satisfied.

“I am glad that most of the truth has come to light, but LTU’s campus was a hostile environment for me for more than a year after I reported Zavier’s harassment in my own campus apartment,” Nedivi said. “He was never suspended at any point, even after he pleaded guilty in state court.”

Nedivi added that the lack of prioritization of his safety made him decide to finish his degree online. “LTU acted more like a criminal organization than a university trying to protect me,” Nedivi added. “LTU’s administration deliberately falsified evidence, made up lies to ruin my reputation and kept me from accessing critical student resources.”

In 2022, Nedivi moved to Southfield, Michigan from Israel to play college soccer, writing in February 2023, that it felt “unreal” to make it to this level of competitive soccer, given that “high-level adult soccer teams in Israel play in stadiums that are the same size” as the one he was playing in as a scholarship athlete at LTU.

After a great first year, Nedivi moved into a room shared with Chimienti in an on-campus apartment where two other teammates also lived. Just a few weeks after, Nedivi says Chimienti became hostile after he hung up an Israeli flag. The apartment also had an Italian flag — symbolizing Chimienti’s ancestry — but it was the Israeli flag that set off months of harassment.

Nedivi said Chimienti would do the Nazi salute in front of the flag, call it ugly, disgusting, and “a Jew flag.” Chimienti would often make references to the Holocaust, remarking for example that “Jews should be put in the oven because they are stinky,” according to Nedivi.

Nedivi recalled one incident where he says Chimienti ran into their room to fart before exclaiming, “I gassed the Jew,” and leaving the room.

Nedivi, the son of an American mother and Israeli father, said he initially kept quiet because he feared causing problems in the close-knit team by reporting Chimienti.

This was all before October 7, 2023, when Hamas brutally massacred Israeli citizens, launching college students around the United States to engage in antisemitic demonstrations and harassment.

Nedivi said he told Chimienti about the accusations that Hamas put Israeli babies in an oven, only to have Chimienti, a few days later, take a Star of David piñata that belonged to Nedivi and put it in the apartment’s oven, stating, “That’s what I hope Hamas does to every Jewish baby.”

Chimienti did this act twice, according to a police report filed by Nedivi reviewed by The Daily Wire. Nedivi also says that Chimienti would frequently mess with the piñata and provided The Daily Wire with a photo of Chimienti wearing it on his head.

The abuse was also physical. Nedivi said that in more than 10 instances, Chimienti came up behind him while he was sitting at his desk doing homework and put him into a sleeper hold.

“Usually he would harass me and give me a whole bunch of antisemitism and Nazism and then without any warning he would put me in a sleeper,” Nedivi said. “I called for my other roommate when he was there a few times to tell him to tell Zavier to stop, which he would do. I couldn’t move my body, my arms or legs because I had no control due to the lack of oxygen.”

The same roommate said he witnessed Chimienti harass and assault Nedivi nearly every day, according to a police witness statement filed in March.

“From the beginning of September 2023 to December 2023, I witnessed one of my three roommates, Zavier Chimienti, physically and emotionally harass Noam Nedivi,” the roommate, who is also on the soccer team, wrote in the police statement. “Nearly every day from the given time range, Zavier would often put his hands on Noam, including poking, pushing, grabbing and choking.”

The roommate’s report cites Chimienti’s Nazi salute and says Chimienti called Nedivi a “dirty Jew” on “more than one occasion.” He also mentioned sexual comments Chimienti made about Nedivi’s sister in Israel.

Police report filed by Noam Nedivi’s roommate, accusing Zavier Chimienti of physical and verbal abuse.

In Nedivi’s police report, he recounted that he was uncomfortable having his twin sister visit him from Israel because Chimienti made comments about wanting to “sexually abuse” her. He told The Daily Wire that his family called off a planned visit from his sister because of fears of what would happen if she stayed in the apartment.

Despite the harassment, Nedivi said he hoped the relationship with Chimienti would improve. The two were friends prior to being roommates, with Nedivi spending Thanksgiving with Chimienti’s family in 2022. But when the holiday came around in 2023, Nedivi said he was pressured to spend it with the Chimienti family again.

Thinking that Chimienti wouldn’t be offensive in front of his parents, Nedivi gave in and left campus with the family, who he says ended up joining in on the harassment.

“Fabio called his wife when I was at their house for Thanksgiving and told her that the family is hosting ‘the Jew,’” he recalled.

While driving to a Black Friday sale, Nedivi said Fabio pushed antisemitic tropes about Jews being cheap, and referred to him as “Jew” instead of by his name. 

“He used the name ‘Jew’ to refer to me and I told him at one point that I don’t like him calling me ‘Jew’ and being referred to as ‘Jew,’” Nedivi said. “I said how I thought it was disrespectful but he went on and said ‘that is how I will refer to you, you Jew.’”

Nedivi also claims Fabio encouraged him to purchase a striped shirt in the store because it “reminds him of a Jewish prisoner of the Nazis.”

In one instance during the holiday, Nedivi said Fabio Chimienti continually made rude remarks inside the house, provoking his wife in a different room to shout that she was coming to stop him. When Michelle Chimienti started walking into the room, Nedivi took out his phone and began filming. In the video shared with The Daily Wire, Fabio Chimienti pretends to be a Palestinian with a “Jew attacking” him as his wife approaches.

Nedivi says Chimienti’s father joined in on the harassment with Holocaust jokes and referring to him as “Jew.”

Nedivi took a video of him pretending to be a Palestinian being attacked. “I’m a Palestinian and she’s a Jew attacking me!” he says. pic.twitter.com/AHVVteOVkn

— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) May 21, 2024

“Ahh! I’m a Palestinian and she’s a Jew attacking me,” Fabio Chimienti says as his wife pretends to punch him.

“Fabio made a lot of Jewish and Nazi comments, including the Nazi salute many times, and he said Heil Hitler many times,” Nedivi recalled. “He told me that when I go back to Israel, he wants me to bring him 100 foreskins of murdered Palestinians by the IDF.”

Chimienti’s mother disputed the claims about the Nazi salutes and the piñata, according to the investigation conducted by the school, accusing Nedivi of placing “the blame on Zavier for things that other people have said and done.”

At the end of the semester, on the morning Nedivi was set to fly back to Israel, he said Chimienti made more Nazi salutes and would put his finger to his lips to “symbolize Hitler’s mustache.”

When home, Nedivi decided to report Chimienti and make arrangements with his other roommates and the school to rectify the housing situation.

Text messages previously reported on by The Daily Wire between the two other roommates and Nedivi at the end of December reveal the seriousness of the situation, including the roommates admitting they witnessed the harassment.

Text messages between Noam Nedivi and one of his former roommates.

In January 2024, Nedivi reported Chimienti to his coach, Will Dyer, the Dean of Students Jolann Baldwin, and campus police. Both Chimienti and Nedivi were immediately suspended and banned from soccer team events, while Baldwin launched an investigation that included interviews of the roommates and other witnesses. 

Nedivi also filed a police report with the Southfield Police Department on January 15, 2024, and a warrant was issued for Chimienti’s arrest. 

Six weeks after her investigation began, Baldwin delivered her report, finding Zavier “not responsible for discriminatory conduct against Noam Nedivi,” implemented a “no contact directive” and determined it was not possible for either of them to remain on the men’s soccer team.

“The investigator believes that there is room for education regarding respecting other people’s physical space and comfort,” the report read. “To that end, Zavier will be required to complete an educational module.”

The report cited the Thanksgiving visits, and meals and gifts by Chimienti’s family as evidence of “a pattern of caring, familial, behavior.”

Nedivi rejected Baldwin’s finding and filed an appeal, prompting an outside law firm hired by the school to investigate Baldwin’s report. It concluded that there was a “clear error in the Dean of Students’ decision to dismiss Complainant’s allegations as unfounded.” 

At the time, the university’s provost Richard Heist declined to discuss specifics on the situation citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but told The Daily Wire the school is “committed to the safety of each of our students and their access to fair consideration and due process through the university’s established policies and procedures.”

Noam Nedivi says he started in many of Lawrence Technological University’s soccer games during his time on the team. (Photo: Vincent Pultorak)

Two days after The Daily Wire’s first report on Nedivi’s situation, he was notified that he was reinstated to the soccer team, though he declined.

“I didn’t want to rejoin the team with a coach who didn’t have my back and disrespected me,” Nedivi said. “I just wanted to finish my studies and get out of there.”

The same law firm was later hired by the school to launch an investigation into the situation with Nedivi and Chimienti, which concluded in July 2024. It found Chimienti responsible for harassment and violating the code of conduct, but stated that he did not “intend to harass or discriminate” but rather was joking and teasing Nedivi. It recommended that Nedivi be placed on a probationary period, read the book Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew by Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby, and have an “educational conversation with a LTU administrator or designee.”

The letter announcing the investigation concluded with a directive to contact Baldwin for additional information. 

In response, Nedivi’s lawyers filed a complaint against Dyer and Baldwin.

According to her LinkedIn, as of November, Baldwin is no longer employed at LTU.

“I appreciate the people who came to my defense and stood by me during what seemed like a never-ending battle,” Nedivi said. “I encourage all Jewish and Israeli students to fight for their safety and their rights, no matter what obstacles are put in their way.”

LTU did not respond to a request for comment. Nedivi said he’s looking forward to graduating early and joining the Israeli Defense Forces.