The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns, a Bill Clinton appointee and graduate of Harvard, claimed the Trump administration failed to prove an ongoing violation of federal civil rights laws. The judge said the lawsuit, filed in March, mostly focuses on incidents that took place in the 2023-24 academic year, with a few from March 2025.
According to Stearns, the cases were “too isolated and episodic” to prove a persistent civil rights violation at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The lawsuit accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students during the multiple anti-Israel protests at the campus in the wake of the Hamas massacre of more than 1200 Jewish men, woman and children in Israel in October of 2023. The Trump administration argued Harvard officials did nothing as Jewish students were “harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon.”
When the lawsuit was filed, Harvard issued a statement saying it had " taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies.”
The government's case sought to recover billions of dollars in federal research grants awarded to Harvard since October 2023. Trump officials argued they had a right to recoup the money under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law barring discrimination based on race or national origin.
