Trump’s Antisemitism Lawsuit Against Harvard Dismissed

A federal district court dismissed one of the Trump administration’s lawsuits against Harvard University on Thursday, ruling that the executive branch failed to prove the institution was committing an ongoing violation of civil rights law that inhibited Jewish students’ ability to learn.

“The court begins (and ends) with Harvard’s first argument,” the judge wrote. “The Government has not sufficiently pled an ongoing violation of Title VI.” (Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination based on race, color or national origin, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.)

Most of the examples the Justice Department cited in its complaint occurred before the federal government told Harvard on June 30, 2025, it was not in compliance with federal law. But in order to succeed in its lawsuit, Richard Stearns, the federal judge overseeing the case, said the Department of Justice needed to show evidence of continued noncompliance after the initial notice was issued.

“Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with Title VI,” wrote Stearns, a Massachusetts district judge.

The Department of Justice initially filed the suit in March. In the complaint, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon argued that Harvard has “remained deliberately indifferent to a level of hostility” and committed a “toothless non-response to the ongoing relentless antisemitic on-campus discrimination.”

In doing so, the DOJ said Harvard violated Title VI and therefore breached the contracts it signed to receive federal funding. As a remedy, the government sought to recover billions in federal funds awarded to the institution over the years.

Stearns, a Clinton appointee, acknowledged that the individual instances of antisemitism the DOJ used as evidence are concerning, but he said they are not enough to “sufficiently” back the claim. Specifically, he noted that only three of the examples cited in the complaint allegedly occurred after the 2023–24 academic year, when a wave of pro-Palestinian protests took place on campuses across the country.

So, “without diminishing any concern arising from these occurrences, the court finds [the incidents cited], singly and collectively, to be too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day,” he wrote.

The DOJ can appeal the decision, but Trump officials haven’t publicly said whether they plan to.

This is the latest development in a yearslong battle between Harvard and the White House over civil rights law and academic freedom. It began in early 2025, when the Trump administration first tried to bring the Ivy League institution to heel and force policy compliance through a multiagency investigation and funding freeze. But Harvard resisted the administration’s efforts to reach a settlement and successfully sued to restore the funds.

The Justice Department also sued Harvard in February, accusing the university of failing to comply with a federal investigation into whether its admissions processes are discriminatory. Harvard is also seeking to dismiss that case, and a judge will hear arguments at a Sept. 24 hearing.