DOJ sues Harvard University over alleged civil rights violations

BOSTON (Gray DC) - The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Harvard University on Friday, alleging the school violated the civil rights of Jewish students.

The DOJ said Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel.

In the suit, filed in Massachusetts federal court Friday, the DOJ claims Harvard “has continued to be deliberately indifferent to a level of hostility on its campus so well-known across the nation that members of Congress were writing about it,” and that it failed to enforce its own rules against students who harassed their Jewish and Israeli peers.

The DOJ is asking the court to force Harvard to comply with Title VI and to recover taxpayer funds the university received while it was violating the law.

The suit comes after months of negotiations between the Trump administration and Harvard, following the government’s attempt to cut federal funding and ban the university from hosting international students. A federal judge has since put those policies on hold following a suit by Harvard.

In response, Harvard released a statement Friday saying, in part, that it has taken substantive and proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism. It also said it will defend against the lawsuit, calling it “another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.”