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WASHINGTON (CN) — The Trump administration accused Harvard University of perpetuating antisemitic hostility on its Boston-area campus in a new lawsuit Friday morning, teeing up a federal freeze on billions of dollars in education grant funds.
The Justice Department brought the three-count civil complaint in Massachusetts federal court, suing the 390-year-old Ivy League school over breach of contract and violations of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin in federally funded programs and activities.
Interchangeably referring to both anti-Israel protesters and antisemitic demonstrators, the Justice Department says Harvard remained indifferent to the hostile treatment of Jewish and pro-Israel students in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.
“Harvard has failed to enforce its rules or meaningfully discipline the mobs that occupy its buildings and terrorize its Jewish and Israeli students,” the Justice Department wrote. “Harvard instead rewarded students who assaulted, harassed or intimidated their Jewish and Israeli peers.”
The Justice Department wrote in the complaint that peaceful protests against the Israeli government would not violate Title VI, but claim the Harvard campus demonstrations were “beyond peaceful protest.”
“Demonstrators violated content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions, and coupled their chants, signage, and other means of disruption with intimidating actions and slurs directed toward specific Jewish and Israeli students because they were Jewish and Israeli,” the Trump administration wrote.
Harvard said it has taken proactive steps to address antisemitism on campus, including “enhanced” training and education on the topic for students, faculty and staff.
“Harvard’s efforts demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference,” a university spokesperson said. “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.”
Trump himself has publicly brainstormed fines ranging from $200 million up to $1 billion for a myriad of supposed wrongdoing by Harvard.
“This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings,” the president wrote in a post on his Truth Social social media platform last month.
Trump succeeded in strongarming fellow Ivy League institution Columbia University to agree to a $200 million settlement over similar claims of antisemitism. As it stands, Harvard has resisted a similar deal.
The lawsuit announced Friday is the latest in an ongoing spat between President Donald Trump and Harvard during his second term, beginning with accusations that the university didn’t do enough to stop antisemitism on its campus during pro-Palestine protests in 2024. The feud has included the Trump administration cutting off more than $2.6 billion in research funding, terminating federal contracts and attempting to block Harvard from hosting international students.
Harvard sued the Trump administration in April 2025 after the White House sent it a letter outlining 10 conditions the university must meet, or risk losing billions in research funding that was already greenlit by the government.
The Justice Department also sued Harvard again last month, accusing the school of unlawfully withholding race-related admissions records from the government amid an ongoing discrimination investigation.
The elite university located mostly in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hasn’t been the only college in the crosshairs of Trump in his second term. He vowed in the past to “reclaim our colleges from the communist left,” and has sparred the past year with elite universities around the nation. He has similarly threatened or instituted similar sudden cuts to funding against Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Northwestern, UCLA and Trump’s alma mater University of Pennsylvania.
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