Trump administration sues Harvard for allegedly enabling antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7

The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit March 20 against Harvard University, alleging it violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by “discriminating against Jewish and Israeli students without remorse” after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel in 2023.  

The lawsuit states that Jewish students were physically assaulted, stalked, and harassed following the attack and were repeatedly denied access to campus buildings by antisemitic protestors. The Trump administration also claimed Jewish students suffered from fear on the basis of their identity and were effectively denied federally funded educational opportunities due to the institution’s failure to protect them. 

Meanwhile, the lawsuit alleges, “many Harvard students all-but celebrated” the Hamas terror attack, and the school allowed anti-Israeli protestors on campus to violate several of Harvard’s rules with “impunity.”  

“Harvard remained deliberately indifferent to a level of hostility on its campus so well-known across the nation that members of Congress were writing about it,” the lawsuit states. “Harvard also intentionally refused to enforce its campus rules — rules it enforced against others — when the victims were 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 alleges that Harvard’s faculty and officials “turned a blind” to hatred and discrimination against Israelis and Jews. The suit cited the fact that the school allowed anti-Israeli protestors to occupy campus libraries and an anti-Israeli encampment to remain for 20 days. According to the lawsuit, teachers also canceled classes to allow the protestors to participate in illicit demonstrations. 

The lawsuit further alleges that “Harvard fostered and continues to foster a campus climate where hostile antisemitism and anti-Israeli conduct thrives.”

The U.S. is seeking “to recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution” and compel Harvard to comply with Title VI, the lawsuit states. 

The filing explains that VI prohibits race and national-origin discrimination in programs that are federally funded and that Harvard is “set to receive more than $2,615,000,000 of taxpayer money under active federal grants from the Department of Health and Human Services alone.” 

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a March 20 X post about the filing, “Harvard cannot continue to take taxpayer funds while turning a blind eye to racial & ethnic abuse against Jewish & Israeli students.”

According to CBS News, a Harvard spokesperson described the lawsuit as a disproportionate act of retaliation on the part of the Trump administration. 

Harvard “has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies on campus,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to prioritize this important work and will defend the University against this lawsuit, which represents yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.”