US judge drops Trump case alleging Harvard failed to protect Jewish students
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit on Thursday by US President Donald Trump’s administration that alleged that Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.
US District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston said in his ruling that the administration’s lawsuit, which was filed in March, had not plausibly shown an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law on Harvard’s campus.
Stearns ruled that the government’s evidence for Harvard having committed Title VI civil rights violations was “too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day.”
The judge said the lawsuit did not adequately allege failures by the Ivy League school after the government told Harvard in June 2025 that it was not complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on race, color and national origin in programs that receive federal funding.
Trump’s suit against the Ivy League school, first filed in March, was a cornerstone of his administration’s aggressive and contentious fight against campus antisemitism. Harvard was among the most prominent schools to have experienced severe tensions, including incidents directly targeting Jewish students and “Zionists,” in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught in Israel. The school settled cases with some Jewish students and put forward its own plans to fight antisemitism.
Yet unlike some other schools, Harvard resisted the government’s efforts to make concessions and pay a fine in order to resolve Title VI cases. The school also fought the Trump administration’s 2025 freezing of more than $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard, which the government argued was punishment for failing to address campus antisemitism.
Sterns wrote that the government’s case in the Title VI suit was flawed because it relied on incidents almost entirely from the 2023-24 school year and couldn’t be considered “ongoing.”
He also criticized the Trump administration’s practice of withholding funds from schools accused of Title VI violations, writing, “Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with Title VI.” Title VI is the section of the Civil Rights Act requiring institutions that receive federal funds not to discriminate on the basis of race, color or national origin.
In a statement, US Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the government disagrees with the ruling and is “assessing next steps.”
Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Harvard case has been seen as a barometer of academia’s ability to fight the Trump administration in court over federal incursion efforts, many of which the administration cited campus antisemitism to justify. The day before the suit’s dismissal, three dozen universities — including fellow Ivy League schools Brown, Columbia and Cornell, all of whom had signed agreements with the Trump administration in exchange for dropping antisemitism charges — filed an amicus brief supporting Harvard in a separate case that had restored the school’s federal funding by court order.
The legal brouhaha had divided Jewish groups. Weeks before the judge’s ruling, Hillel International filed, then immediately withdrew, its own amicus brief supporting Harvard in the separate case. Hillel’s brief had argued the school was already adequately addressing antisemitism and that the government’s actions “do not help Jewish students.” Hillel withdrew the brief hours later, after some pro-Israel activists criticized the organization on social media and urged donors to withhold funding.
Trump has targeted elite universities he believes are overrun by left-wing ideology and antisemitism, which has spiked on university campuses across the US since the October 7 onslaught.
Trump officials have separately sought to cut Harvard’s research funding and limit its ability to enroll foreign students and US military members.
In a separate legal case last year, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reverse more than $2.6 billion in federal funding cuts to Harvard. That decision found that the White House put unconstitutional conditions on federal funding, using antisemitism as a “smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault” on universities.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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A federal judge in Boston, US District Judge Richard Stearns, dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against Harvard University. The lawsuit alleged that Harvard failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Judge Stearns ruled that the administration's evidence was "too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day." The judge also criticized the administration's practice of withholding federal funds, stating that "Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with Title VI." The Trump administration, through US Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, expressed disagreement with the ruling and is "assessing next steps."
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