The first black woman to serve as American University’s student government president has sued a neo-Nazi website’s publisher, accusing him of orchestrating an online harassment campaign against her.

Taylor Dumpson’s federal lawsuit, filed on Monday in Washington, says Andrew Anglin directed the Daily Stormer’s readers to “troll storm” her with a barrage of racist and demeaning messages on social media.

Authorities began investigating last May after someone hung bananas with hateful messages from nooses on the university’s campus a day after Dumpson’s inauguration. Dumpson has feared for her safety since Anglin posted an article about the incident, including links to her Facebook page and the American University student government’s Twitter page, her suit says.

The case is at least the third federal lawsuit filed against Anglin by a target of his trolling campaigns. Anglin did not immediately respond to an email on Tuesday seeking comment on Dumpson’s suit, which was filed by attorneys from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Kristen Clarke, the group’s president and executive director, said the lawsuit is a response to a recent spike in “hate activity” on college campuses.

“This lawsuit sends a strong signal to those who perpetrate hate and promote white supremacy that there are victims who will not cower and who will instead stand up and take action to protect their rights,” she said in an email on Tuesday.

The suit names two other people as defendants and accuses them of sending “hateful, intimidating and harassing” Twitter messages to Dumpson after Anglin’s post.

Anglin’s site takes its name from Der Stürmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. It has struggled to stay online over the past year. Domain name registration companies Google and GoDaddy yanked the site’s web address after Anglin published a post mocking a woman killed in a deadly car attack at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August.

Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh sued Anglin last April, claiming anonymous internet trolls bombarded her family with hateful and threatening messages after Anglin published their personal information. In a string of posts, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an “extortion racket” against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Muslim American radio host Dean Obeidallah sued Anglin in Ohio last August. His federal suit says Anglin falsely labeled him as the “mastermind” behind a deadly bombing at a concert in England.

Gersh’s suit accuses Anglin of invading her privacy, intentionally inflicting “emotional distress” and violating a Montana anti-intimidation law.

Anglin’s lawyers have asked a federal judge in Montana to dismiss her suit, arguing he had a constitutional right to express his “political speech” about Gersh and isn’t liable for his readers’ words or actions. Gersh’s attorneys countered that the first amendment does not protect Anglin’s “coordinated online attack” on her family.

Dumpson’s suit says she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and “feels constantly afraid and on edge”, terrified to leave her home at night.

“This fear did disrupt and continues to disrupt Ms Dumpson’s daily life. The context of the physical hate crime on campus amplifies the severity of the trolling,” the suit says.