Trump administration says Harvard violated Jewish students' rights, expanding campaign against higher education

Straits Times

8 hours ago

FILE PHOTO: A view of the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Faith Ninivaggi/File Photo
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration said on Monday that an investigation had concluded Harvard University violated federal civil rights law for failing to address harassment of Jewish and Israeli students, though critics and some faculty say such probes are a pretext to assert federal control over schools.
The announcement could lay the groundwork for further action against the school, which has already seen billions of dollars in grant money frozen by the administration as part of a broader campaign against Harvard and other universities across the country. Universities have said Trump's actions threaten academic freedom and free speech, as well as critical scientific research.
The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights accused Harvard of "deliberate indifference" toward discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students, according to a notice from the administration.
The department outlined a series of harassment incidents and faulted Harvard's response for being "too little, too late."
"Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources," lawyers for the administration wrote in a separate letter to Harvard President Alan Garber that was viewed by Reuters. The result of the probe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
In a statement, Harvard said it had taken "substantive, proactive steps" to address antisemitism on campus, including updating its disciplinary processes and expanding training on antisemitism.
"Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government's findings," the school said.
Monday's letter is the latest in a multi-pronged assault that Trump has waged against Harvard, the nation's oldest and wealthiest university, after it rejected sweeping demands to alter its operations.
The administration has frozen some $2.5 billion in federal grant money to Harvard, moved to block it from enrolling international students and threatened to remove its tax-exempt status. Harvard has filed lawsuits challenging those moves.
In addition to targeted funding freezes at specific schools, the administration's cutbacks at agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have also resulted in terminated grants to research universities.
The president has taken particular aim at Harvard and Columbia, two of the nation's most prominent universities.
Earlier this year, the administration said it had terminated grants and contracts to Columbia University worth $400 million, accusing the school of not protecting students from antisemitic harassment during massive campus protests against the Israel-Gaza war, which included some Jewish organizers. Civil rights groups in response have said the contract cancellations lacked due process and were an unconstitutional punishment for protected speech.
However, Columbia agreed to negotiate with the administration over demands that the school tighten its protest rules. The school's interim president, Katrina Armstrong, stepped down days later.
In May, the Trump administration concluded that Columbia had violated civil rights law by failing to address antisemitism, just as it did on Monday regarding Harvard. Earlier this month, Trump's Department of Education said Columbia had failed to meet accreditation standards by allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from harassment.
Other schools have also become targets for the pressure campaign.
On Friday, the president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, resigned under pressure from the Trump administration over the school's diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it would investigate hiring practices at the massive University of California system - which enrolls nearly 300,000 students - to examine whether they run afoul of anti-discrimination law. REUTERS
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