Travelers File Class-Action Suit against Anti-Israel Activists Who Organized Chicago Airport Traffic Blockade

Lawyers at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute announced a class action lawsuit this week against the activists who organized a pro-Hamas traffic blockade in front of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, a suit lawyers hope will impose justifiable consequences on “anti-American” activists.

Multiple activist groups — including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Chicago Dissenters, the Tides Center, and National Students for Justice in Palestine — organized the April 15 blockade as part of a nationwide “A15 Action” movement to disrupt civilian movement and highlight what they call Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. The specific demonstration in Chicago was in protest of the airline manufacturing company, Boeing, which sells military equipment to Israel. Masked blockaders cut off access to the airport for multiple hours, handcuffing themselves together to prevent the flow of traffic.

“Once upon a time, we had a criminal justice system that would act to prevent these sorts of disruptive behaviors,” HLLI co-founder and Director of Litigation Ted Frank told National Review. “And over the last half decade or so, we have several prosecutors that just don’t believe in prosecuting for these sorts of crimes, and we now have a generation of activists that think that they can do this sort of stuff with impunity.”

“There isn’t any criminal deterrence, but these are still civil wrongs, and it’s not a novel idea to say that this is a civil wrong, that this is a tort,” Frank added. “These are torts that have existed for centuries. In the common law, you cannot falsely imprison someone, you cannot block the roads — it’s a public nuisance, and there just hasn’t been civil enforcement.”

HLLI’s client missed his flight and ultimately missed a work event when he was not able to reach his intended destination. Others walked more than a mile to the airport in order to make their flights, with luggage in tow, sometimes missing their flights. Anti-Israel activists’ claim that they were exercising a First Amendment right to protest is a “clearly incorrect” categorization, Frank said.

“We’re not saying that any of these people need to be punished for what they’re saying,” Frank said. “We’re saying they need to be punished because they handcuffed themselves to each other inside of PVC tube and blocked the roads for several hours and injured people — that’s just simply a tort, and it doesn’t matter what your message is.”

Four individuals are named in HLLI’s suit: Jinan Chehade, Superior Murphy, Simone Tucker, and Rifqa Felaneh, all of whom were “directly involved in orchestrating or promoting the blockade,” the firm said.

Chehade became a civil litigation junior staff attorney at the Muslim Legal Fund after graduating from Georgetown Law School in 2023. She co-founded Georgetown’s Law Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and is on social media an outspoken critic of Israel. Although Chehade was slated to work for Chicago-based law firm Foley & Lardner, the firm rescinded her job offer due to her social-media activity, as well as her participation in multiple anti-Israel Chicago protests.

“Foley is led by our core values, which seek to foster an environment where people feel included, safe and supported,” Foley spokeswoman Rachel Sisserson said. “We stand behind our decision to rescind Ms. Chehade’s employment offer as a result of the statements she made surrounding the horrendous attacks by Hamas on October 7.”

Murphy, who uses “they/them” pronouns, is an “ambitious organizer and evaluator that strives to preserve their peace as well as the peace of Black and marginalized folks,” according to her biography. Murphy asked Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson at a rally in July to drop charges against the traffic blockaders, who she said called “brave enough to unabashedly take a stance against genocide, racial apartheid and collective punishment.”

Tucker is a student organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace and a member of anti-Israel organization IfNotNow, who told local news during the Chicago blockade that “the U.S. government has given us no choice but to disrupt business as usual.”

Felaneh is a fellow at Palestine Legal and was a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for the student Bar Association at the University of Illinois College of Law, from where she graduated in 2023. She also led multiple Students for Justice in Palestine chapters during her academic career.

Activists believed they could break the law with impunity, Frank said, and even bragged about the blockade on social media, which is how the firm could identify so many of them. Five days before the coordinated effort, activists preemptively established a bail fund to “to support community members who are criminalized in the U.S. for their solidarity with Palestine.” The Tides Center, a George Soros-backed progressive organization that has donated millions to support anti-Israel initiatives, helped activists advertise and manage the bail fund, according to the lawsuit.

“So far, there haven’t been consequences, and we’re seeing, I think, socially problematic activity, and criminal activity that punishes citizen Americans,” Frank said. “And many of these activists are just simply anti-American, rather than actually hoping to change anything in the political system.”