The Justice Department's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division filed the lawsuit against Harvard “for race and national origin discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students" in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
After Hamas' attacks on October 7, 2023, the DOJ said "Harvard has tolerated antisemitic mobs of students, faculty, and visitors" allegedly expressing their opposition to Israel by "assaulting, harassing, and intimidating Jewish and Israeli students" with perceived racial, ethnic, and national connections to Israel.
The DOJ went on to say that Harvard has been deliberately indifferent to its Jewish and Israeli students' plight and failed to prevent such conduct by selectively enforcing its campus rules to permit it to continue.
"Harvard ignored what its own Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias deemed the ‘exclusion of Israeli or Zionist students from social spaces and extracurricular activities’," said the DOJ in its press release about the lawsuit. "Harvard failed to meaningfully discipline the mobs that occupied its buildings and terrorized its Jewish and Israeli students. Federal law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in schools that accept federal funding.
The Trump administration has been at odds with Harvard since the president re-entered office in January 2025.
Zachary Marschall, editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, told AFN that it's warranted.
"This is a way to get back taxpayer funding that Harvard is benefiting from that, based on the way it acted, it does not deserve to have," Marschall says. "I do support the idea of federal funding freezes or the equivalent as a punitive measure against universities that fail to protect Jewish students after October 7th."
While this lawsuit is based on events that already happened and may be viewed as nothing new, Marschall thinks it's just as important for Harvard and other universities to understand that this is an issue that cannot be tolerated.
"Antisemitism, as the world's oldest form of hatred, is not going to go away, so there is a continuous need to always combat it, always be vigilant against it," Marschall says. "I like the idea of the lawsuit serving as a reminder and a warning to current administrators that they need to always be putting their best efforts forward to protect all students on campus, including Jewish students."
