The US Justice Department on Friday filed a lawsuit against Harvard University alleging antisemitism on the Ivy League campus located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Anadolu reports.
The case, filed in federal court, says the leadership at Harvard failed to address campus-wide antisemitism, which justifies the government freezing existing grants and seeking repayment for grants already paid to the university.
Department officials alleged: “Harvard has failed to protect its Jewish and Israeli students in two ways. First, Harvard has continued to be deliberately indifferent to a level of hostility on its campus … Second, Harvard has refused to enforce its campus rules against students who harass their Jewish and Israeli peers.”
The department lawsuit says that the “United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures and brings this action to compel Harvard to comply” with federal civil rights law “and to recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.”
Harvard immediately responded to the suit, posting on its website that it vowed to “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.”
“Harvard cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus,” said a university statement. “Our actions illustrate this. 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.”
– Months-long battle
President Donald Trump has been in a months-long battle with Harvard and other Ivy League and top-tier universities in the United States seeking the defunding of grants to institutions that Trump believes go against the core values of the right-wing Republican-majority administration.
The lawsuit comes in the wake of a federal investigation into antisemitism at Harvard, which escalated into a full-scale political war, where the Trump administration cut more than $2.6 billion in research funding, ended federal contracts, and attempted to block Harvard from hosting international students.
In response, Harvard has filed a pair of lawsuits claiming that the university is being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s political views. A federal judge reversed the federal funding cuts in December, calling the antisemitism argument a “smokescreen.”
Despite the ruling, the Trump administration continues to push forward by attempting to implement more sanctions against Harvard.
“Today’s litigation underscores the Trump Administration’s commitment to demanding better from our nation’s schools and putting an end to discriminatory behavior that harms students,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
