The Justice Department has accused Harvard of being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment of Jewish and Israeli students, and intentionally refusing to enforce its campus rules when victims are Jews or Israelis.
The US Justice Department on Friday sued Harvard University, accusing the prestigious school of violating federal civil rights law by failing to address antisemitism on its campus.
President Donald Trump has previously clashed with Harvard, as part of his campaign to force changes at major US universities, which Trump has accused of fostering alleged antisemitic and “radical left” ideologies.
“The United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures and brings this action to compel Harvard to comply” with federal civil rights law, the Justice Department wrote in the lawsuit, “and to recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.”
Harvard has not responded to the accusations or commented on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accused Harvard of being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment of Jewish and Israeli students, and intentionally refusing to enforce its campus rules when victims are Jews or Israelis.
“This sent the clear message to Harvard’s Jewish and Israeli community that the indifference was not an accident; they were being intentionally excluded and effectively denied equal access to educational opportunities,” the lawsuit read.
Antisemitism accusations against Harvard
Less than two weeks after Trump took office, his administration began investigating Harvard over allegations of discrimination against its Jewish and Israeli students.
The investigation centers around actions taken before and after pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the Israel-Hamas war.
Friday’s lawsuit claims Harvard failed to discipline staff or students who protested or tacitly endorsed the demonstrations, such as by canceling or dismissing classes that conflicted with protests.
Since last summer, Harvard has rejected the government’s findings, saying the institution was committed to fighting bias.
“Antisemitism is a serious problem and no matter the context, it is unacceptable,” the university said in a statement. “Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community.”
In a letter last spring, Harvard President Alan Garber told government officials that the school had formed a task force to combat antisemitism
Garber added that Harvard had hired a new provost and new deans and that it had reformed its discipline policies to make them “more consistent, fair and effective.”
Trump weaponizes federal funding
Trump’s move against Harvard has also been applied towards other universities, with the White House freezing billions of dollars in research grants, that the institutions rely on for scientific and medical research.
When a university has been found to have violated federal civil rights law and a resolution can’t be negotiated, the government can try to sever federal funding through an administrative process or, as the Trump administration has done with Harvard, by referring the case to the Justice Department through litigation.
Several universities have already reached agreements with the White House to restore their funding.
Among the deals, some have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million (€172 million) from Columbia University, while Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.
Harvard and the Trump administration had also been negotiating, reportedly getting close to reaching an agreement on multiple occasions, with a deal that reportedly would have required Harvard to pay $500 million to regain access to federal funding and to end the investigations.
But then Trump raised the figure to $1 billion, saying that Harvard has been “behaving very badly.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, a major association of colleges and universities, said the administration was launching a “full scale, multi-pronged” attack on Harvard.
“When bullies pound on the table and don’t get they want, they pound again,” Mitchell added.
Edited by: Alex Berry
DW News
