Harvard willfully ignored harassment of Jews and Israelis, Trump administration finds
57-page investigation cites allegations of bias beginning shortly after Oct. 7 attack and stretching into this year, threatens loss of all federal funding
Harvard University failed to protect Jewish students from harassment, US President Donald Trump’s administration concluded after an investigation, threatening on Monday to cut all federal funding from the Ivy League school if it fails to take action.
A federal task force sent a letter to Harvard on Monday, finding the university violated civil rights laws requiring colleges to protect students from discrimination based on race or national origin. It says investigators found Harvard was at times a “willful participant in antisemitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff” and that campus leaders allowed antisemitism to fester on the Massachusetts campus.
A Trump administration statement said the school was “deliberately indifferent to the severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment of Jewish and Israeli students by its own students and faculty.” It cited an internal university investigation into antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, an investigation by the US Congress, and media reports that documented “vandalism, harassment, and physical violence” against Jewish and Israeli students.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” officials said in the letter, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Harvard did not immediately comment.
The letter finds that Harvard violated Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such findings have almost always been resolved through voluntary resolutions between schools and the federal government. The Trump administration has taken a much sharper edge than its predecessors, however.
Trump’s administration and its predecessor under former president Joe Biden opened Title VI investigations into antisemitism at campuses across the country following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught and during the ensuing war, which sparked a spike in antisemitism worldwide. A number of them have been resolved. It has been decades since a US administration even attempted to fully strip a school or college of its federal funding over civil rights violations.
The letter is the latest intensification in the White House’s battle with Harvard over campus antisemitism. The school lost more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants after rejecting a list of federal demands calling for sweeping changes to campus governance, hiring, and admissions. According to the investigation, from fiscal year 2023 to 2025, the school received more than $794 million in federal funds.
A formal finding paves the way for a negotiated agreement or — if one is not reached — an attempt to cut the school off from federal dollars. The Trump administration has also sought to bar foreign students from studying at Harvard. A federal judge issued an injunction against that ban last week.
The 57-page investigation cites allegations of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias beginning shortly after the October 7 attack and stretching into this year. It includes reports of discriminatory conduct on social media and in campus spaces, as well as sections titled “Targeted harassment by student groups” and “Institutional acceptance of antisemitism.”
Much of the investigation’s evidence focuses on campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war, which drew global attention particularly in the spring of 2024 as anti-Israel groups set up encampments on campuses across the United States and in other countries. The investigation says Harvard was “overrun by an impermissible, multiweek encampment” that left Jewish and Israeli students fearful and disrupted their studies.
It accuses Harvard of imposing lax and inconsistent discipline against students who participated in the encampment, noting that none were suspended.
Harvard President Alan Garber has acknowledged problems with antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on campus, but he says Harvard has made strides to fight prejudice. He announced new initiatives in April after Harvard released its internal reports finding evidence of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus.
“Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry,” Garber wrote in releasing the reports.
The Times of Israel Community.