Sadie Gurman & Douglas Belkin:
The Trump administration is suing Harvard University, alleging the school violated Jewish students’ civil rights in the latest escalation of the government’s yearlong campaign against the Ivy League school.
The suit alleges Harvard failed to protect its Jewish and Israeli students by ignoring hostility on campus and refusing to enforce antiharassment rules. The suit, being filed Friday in federal district court in Massachusetts, seeks to compel the school to comply with civil-rights law and recover millions of taxpayer dollars that Harvard accepted while allegedly in violation of the law.
Harvard is currently set to receive more than $2.6 billion in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other federal agencies, according to the lawsuit.
Colleges including Harvard allowed antisemitism to flourish on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, the administration alleged. “This Justice Department has no tolerance for such brazen violations of federal law,” said Harmeet Dhillon, head of the department’s civil rights division, which brought the suit.