The Trump administration accused Harvard University on Monday of violating federal civil rights law by failing to adequately respond to the harassment of Jewish and Israeli students on its campus that occurred since October 7, 2023.
A letter from the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, sent to President Alan M. Garber, says that Harvard is “in violent violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis on race, color, and national origin. “Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies,” it reads, “has enabled anti-Semitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to hide their identities and ancestral stories.”
The letter concludes by saying that “failure to institute adequate changes immediately” in response to the investigation’s findings will lead to the “loss of all federal financial resources.”
The task force letter was one of two communications the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Monday regarding alleged civil rights violations. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Health and Human Services sent a separate “notice of violation” and issued an accompanying press release.
OCR, which enforces Title VI, had launched a formal investigation into allegations of antisemitism and discrimination on Harvard’s campus earlier this year. As a recipient of federal financial assistance—totaling more than $794 million between 2023 and 2025—the University is barred from discriminating against any racial or ethnic group in its programs and activities.
According to OCR’s notice, the agency concluded that Harvard had violated civil rights law by “acting with deliberate indifference towards harassment of Jewish and Israeli students by other students and faculty from October 7, 2023, through the present.”
In a statement, Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton responded that “Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings.” Newton added that the University has taken “substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community” and remains committed “to ensuring members of [its] Jewish and Israeli community are embraced, respected, and can thrive.”
Harvard’s campus was roiled following the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, as students engaged in protests and counter-protests and organized a pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard. Last year, Harvard created its own task force to study antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus, along with a separate task force to study anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias. Both reports, with recommendations, were released concurrently in April.
In January, Harvard settled a pair of lawsuits accusing the university of antisemitism, announcing such changes as adopting a definition of antisemitism that includes certain types of anti-Israel rhetoric, convening an annual academic symposium on antisemitism, and providing training on antisemitism.
Since January of last year, the University has also made changes to its internal policy—clarifying rules on the time, place, and manner of protests, standardizing disciplinary procedures for protest policy violations across schools, introducing new programs to promote viewpoint diversity, and suspending some programs that had been accused of anti-Israel bias.
The OCR investigation heavily draws on Harvard’s antisemitism and anti-Israel bias task force report to corroborate its findings. It makes no mention of the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian task force report.
The 57-page OCR notice of violation points to “a grim reality of on-campus discrimination that is pervasive, persistent, and effectively unpunished” and argues that its findings “establish a pattern of unlawful and unchecked discrimination” by students and student groups. Harvard’s response to such discrimination has been “too little, too late,” it says.
Receiving a notice of violation from a federal civil rights watchdog typically results in one of two outcomes. The institution under investigation can come to a voluntary resolution agreement with the federal government or the Department of Justice can launch a lawsuit to enforce compliance.
“Harvard has acted—and continues to act—with deliberate indifference,” the OCR report concludes. “We will refer this matter to the Department of Justice as soon as possible after the mailing of this notice absent voluntary compliance.” It was not clear Monday what actions the government wants the University to take to resolve the alleged violations; however, OCR director Paula Stannard said that the health and human services department “stands ready to reengage in productive discussions with Harvard.”
Harvard is the second institution, after Columbia University, to be investigated by the OCR for race and national origin discrimination under the Trump administration while being cited for “deliberate indifference.” The University faces multiple challenges from the White House and Republican-controlled Congress, including a House Judiciary Committee subpoena seeking information about its financial aid practices, federal funding cuts, and an effort to block the University from hosting international students.
A federal court hearing to challenge the Trump administration’s decision to freeze more than $2.2 billion in funding is scheduled for mid-July. In a brief filed this afternoon, Harvard’s attorneys argue that the government had not followed appropriate procedure for terminating federal funding, and that its various actions are “unconstitutional retaliation to punish Harvard for defending its First Amendment rights.” The brief, for which the judge had set a Monday deadline, calls attention to the OCR report. Harvard’s lawyers argue that the report “necessarily concedes that the Government can use the Title VI process; it just deliberately chose to ignore it in its rush to inflict pain and punishment upon Harvard.”
