Trump takes on Harvard and sues Ivy League college ‘for not doing enough to protect Jewish students’ | EUROtoday

The Trump administration has sued Harvard University, alleging the Ivy League faculty didn’t cease or punish widespread campus antisemitism within the wake of the Israel-Gaza battle.

“Jewish and Israeli students at Harvard University were harassed, physically assaulted, stalked and spat upon,” the go well with, filed in Massachusetts federal courtroom Friday, reads. “For several years, Jewish and Israeli students endured a hostile educational environment. Harvard’s response to this: do nothing.”

The grievance alleges that Harvard’s response to campus demonstrations, which included constructing occupations and a 2024 protest encampment, violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars id discrimination at federally funded establishments.

The federal authorities particulars a litany of regarding antisemitism allegations, together with folks yelling “Heil Hitler” at Jewish college students and blocking Jews and Israelis on campus from coming into sure buildings throughout demonstrations. The go well with additionally seeks to categorise broadly used protest chants within the Palestine solidarity motion corresponding to “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as calls to kill Jewish folks. The go well with doesn’t notice that quite a few Jewish college students have taken half in pro-Palestine protests at Harvard and past.

Campus protests have died down since their excessive level in 2023 and 2024, however the lawsuit alleges alarming conduct has continued, together with with a 2025 incident the place protesters breached barricades throughout an look from former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The go well with seeks to rescind federal grants to Harvard, impose an out of doors monitor, and require the college to work with regulation enforcement to arrest protesters.

Unlike different prime universities that noticed giant Israel-related protests, corresponding to UCLA and Columbia, Harvard didn’t pursue a mass police response.

“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,” a college spokesperson informed The Independent in an announcement. “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.”

The college known as the go well with “yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.”

The lawsuit is the newest in a collection of authorized battles between the varsity and the administration.

In the wake of campus protests, the college performed a presidential job pressure on combating antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, which included an in-depth investigation of campus antisemitism and campus coverage reforms. The transfer got here after Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned in early 2024 following testimony to Congress that was blasted by critics.

This February, the administration sued Harvard for its admissions information, alleging the college was failing to show over paperwork to make sure it was complying with a latest Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative motion, the identical month the Defense Department minimize ties with the varsity over its “woke” curriculum.

Last yr, Harvard sued the administration for freezing greater than $2.5 billion in analysis funding over allegations the college had allowed campus antisemitism.

In September, a federal decide sided with the college, writing that the White House “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”

The Trump administration has appealed the choice.

Since taking workplace, the Trump administration has launched investigations and funding freezes towards quite a few prime universities over antisemitism allegations, although Harvard has declined to achieve a negotiated settlement with the White House like its friends at Columbia or Northwestern did.

Harvard balked at Trump administration proposals that had been floated throughout negotiations, together with a push for the college to undertake an out of doors “viewpoint diversity” audit of the scholar physique and college.