The Trump administration is once again attempting to sue Harvard University over alleged discrimination against Jewish students after losing its previous legal battle.
The lawsuit filed Friday claims the Ivy League school did not enforce its protest policies and allowed Jewish students to be “harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon” during the months of pro-Palestinian protests in response to the Israel-Hamas War. Harvard won its last months-long legal battle with the Trump administration in 2025, when more than $2 billion in federal funding the administration stripped from the school over antisemitism and racial discrimination accusations was restored by the courts.
The new lawsuit alleges Harvard “remains deliberately indifferent” to antisemitic activity on campus, failing to discipline students who occupied buildings during protests and “intentionally refused to enforce its campus rules.” The administration is asking the court to force Harvard to return all federal grants the school received during the period it allowed antisemitic activity to persist, properly enforce content-neutral protest policies, and punish students who broke university rules.
“Harvard cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus. Our actions illustrate this,” a university spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies on campus. We also have enhanced training and education on antisemitism for students, faculty, and staff and launched programs to promote civil dialogue and respectful disagreement inside and outside the classroom.
“Harvard’s efforts demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference. We will continue to prioritize this important work and will defend the University against this lawsuit, which represents yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.”
A federal judge previously told the administration to back off on its attack on the school, insisting Harvard was already working to curb antisemitism and that the administration was stomping on Harvard’s free speech rights. Harvard’s president in April apologized to the university community for allowing antisemitism as long as it did and promised to take steps to update university policies and processes after an independent task force hired by the university found more than a quarter of Jewish students felt “physically unsafe” on campus and “Almost 60% of Jewish students reported experiencing ‘discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias.’”
The administration is now intentionally asking the court to declare Harvard forfeited its federal funding by failing to adhere to civil rights law.
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