The Justice Department sued Harvard University for allegedly violating Jewish students’ civil rights in the Trump administration’s latest attack on the university.
In the suit filed Friday in Boston federal court, the government claims Harvard failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism during protests that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
The administration has previously tried to freeze federal funding to Harvard and block visas for foreign students. It has justified many of its actions by pointing to alleged antisemitism on campus. President Donald Trump has demanded a $1 billion payment from Harvard as well as changes to the university’s admissions policies and governance.
In a statement, Harvard spokesperson Sarah Kennedy-O’Reilly called the lawsuit “yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.” She said the university would defend itself in court.
“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,” Kennedy-O’Reilly said. “We also have enhanced training and education on antisemitism for students, faculty, and staff and launched programs to promote civil dialogue and respectful disagreement inside and outside the classroom.”
“Harvard University has failed to protect its Jewish students from harassment and has allowed discrimination to wreak havoc on its campus. President Trump is committed to ensuring every student can pursue their academic goals in a safe environment,” said Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson.
In Friday’s suit, government lawyers asked for a court order declaring that the administration can withhold funds over civil rights violations and claw back earlier federal grants.
The Justice Department is also seeking an order that Harvard must “take affirmative steps to ensure full and equal access to Harvard’s educational opportunities and benefits for Jewish and Israeli students.”
Several elite universities, including Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Northwestern, have settled with the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism in order to restore federal research funding. Harvard has not, so far choosing to challenge the government in court.
Last year, a federal judge ruled that the administration unlawfully froze $2 billion in research funds as retaliation for the school exercising its free speech rights, writing at the time that the accusations of antisemitism were “at best, arbitrary and, at worst, pretextual.”
The Justice Department is appealing that ruling. Harvard also won court orders last year blocking the administration from denying entry to foreign students set to attend the school.
The Republican-led House Education and the Workforce Committee this month released a report, “How Campuses Became Hotbeds in the Rise of Radical Antisemitism,” that criticized university leaders for failing to address the issue and said many faculty members are amplifying it.
The same committee held hearings in December 2023 that ultimately led to the ouster of Harvard’s then-president, Claudine Gay.
The report said Harvard, under the leadership of current President Alan Garber, has taken some steps to address antisemitism at some of its schools. “Such changes are some of the many needed to root out the institutionalized antisemitism within these and other programs,” the report said.
A Harvard Jewish alumni group also recently released a report, “A Narrowing Gate: Jewish Enrollment at Harvard and Its Peers: 1967–2025,” that showed a “significant and anomalous decline” in Jewish undergraduate enrollment at Harvard, finding the percentage of Jewish students is now the lowest in the Ivy League.
“This report is not an accusation. It is an invitation to build the infrastructure that makes accountability possible,” Adrian Ashkenazy, the president of the group, said in a statement about its findings. He said parents of current students at Harvard had come to him “in real distress.”
The case is United States v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 26-cv-11352, US District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
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