Trump Admin Finds Harvard Discriminated Against Jewish Students, Threatens Funding

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration found that Harvard’s treatment of both Jewish and Israeli students violated federal civil rights law, the administration told Harvard on Monday.

“Today, the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is notifying you that the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services has concluded its Title VI investigation regarding anti-Semitism at Harvard University,” the Trump administration said in a letter sent to Harvard President Alan Garber on Monday.

“After a thorough investigation, HHS OCR finds that Harvard University is in violent violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin,” the letter continues.

If the university fails to “institute adequate changes immediately,” it will lose all federal financial resources, the Trump administration said. The letter adds: “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”

The Trump administration describes how the majority of Jewish students at Harvard reported experiencing discrimination or negative bias on campus — and a quarter of Jewish students felt physically unsafe.

“Jewish and Israeli students were assaulted and spit on; they hid their kippahs for fear of being harassed and concealed their Jewish identity from classmates for fear of ostracization,” the letter shared.

Further, antisemitic images were widely circulated throughout the Harvard community, such as one image showing a dollar sign inside a Star of David, and the “campus was vandalized with anti-Semitic stickers, including one that showed the Israeli flag with a swastika in place of the Star of David.”

The John Harvard statue (Photo by Heather Diehl/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

“The campus was wracked by demonstrations that flagrantly violated the University’s rules of conduct,” the letter noted. “The demonstrations included calls for genocide and murder, and denied Jewish and Israeli students access to campus spaces.”

Additionally, Harvard allowed an “impermissible, multiweek encampment” in the heart of campus that “instilled fear in, and disrupted the studies of, Jewish and Israeli students.”

“Even worse,” the Trump administration letter said, “individuals who participated in the encampment received lax and inconsistent discipline — and as the discipline was reviewed by higher levels among the faculty, it was often downgraded. By the end of the process, even accounting only for the students that were charged, only a fraction received some sort of discipline, and none were suspended. A member of Harvard’s own leadership called the disciplinary process ‘not fair’ and ‘not right.'”

Harvard didn’t even dispute these findings, the Trump administration said.

“These facts, while tragic for the individuals involved, are important to address for a broader, historical reason as well,” the letter stated. “As history has proven, the failure to face the reality of anti-Semitism can have catastrophic effects. The Holocaust engulfed Europe due to the ‘[d]isbelief, incredulity, and denial on the part of both victims and onlookers’ which ‘worked to the advantage of those who wanted to eradicate the Jews.'”

The Trump administration described Harvard’s inaction as a clear example of the “demographic hierarchy that has taken hold of the University,” arguing that the university’s commitment to racial hierarchies “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.”

In a statement to The Daily Wire, Harvard described antisemitism as “unacceptable” and a “serious problem.”

“Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings,” a spokesman said. “Harvard has made significant strides to combat bigotry, hate and bias. We are not alone in confronting this challenge and recognize that this work is ongoing. We remain committed to ensuring members of our Jewish and Israeli community are embraced, respected, and can thrive at Harvard.”