President Donald Trump’s administration has filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Harvard University for allegedly ignoring the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students.
The Justice Department announced the lawsuit Friday, accusing the university of “allowing the spread of anti-Semitism” amid unrest over Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
According to the lawsuit, the university’s policy “sent a clear message to Harvard’s Jewish and Israeli communities that their indifference was not accidental; they were intentionally excluded and effectively denied equal access to educational opportunities.”
Harvard University quickly rejected the lawsuit’s claims, calling it “another pretext and retaliatory action” by the Trump administration.
Trump has had a long-standing feud with Harvard University since returning to office for a second term in 2025.
Harvard University said in a statement that it has taken steps to address anti-Semitism on campus, including through new training and disciplinary processes.
“Harvard cares deeply about members of the Jewish and Israeli communities and remains committed to ensuring that they are accepted, respected, and thrive on campus,” a university spokesperson said in a statement.
“Harvard’s efforts demonstrate the opposite of willful indifference.”
The exact amount of damages the Trump administration is seeking from Harvard University, the oldest continuously operating university in the United States, is unclear.
But Friday’s lawsuit points to about $2.6 billion in federal aid awarded to the university by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The lawsuit suggests that the Trump administration is seeking to recoup all federal aid awarded to Harvard since October 2023, when student protests against the war in Gaza erupted.
The case will be heard in the court of U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns, an appointee under President Bill Clinton.
Pressure campaign against universities
Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has frequently used the pretext of combating anti-Semitism to call for greater control over America’s universities, which he sees as hotbeds of discrimination.
He campaigned for re-election on a promise to address widespread Palestine solidarity protests on U.S. campuses, and within months of taking office he ended $400 million in federal aid to Columbia University, one of the schools with close ties to the protests.
The Trump administration then issued a list of demands for Colombia, including banning masks, placing one academic department under the supervision of a “receiving institution” and allowing outside law enforcement to arrest “instigators.”
On March 22, 2025, Colombia signed an agreement with the regime. Later that year, in July, they agreed to pay a penalty of approximately $220 million.
The aggressive maneuver against Columbia University served as a template for President Trump’s pressure campaign against other top US schools, including Brown University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
It also coincided with a push to arrest and deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activities, including Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rumeisa Ozturk.
The government is reportedly working with pro-Israel groups such as Canary Mission and Betar US, which monitor student activists and pass their names on to federal authorities.
Federal Judge William Young ruled in September that the Trump administration had violated the right to free speech by trying to deport pro-Palestinian students and academics.
Young wrote that the Trump administration’s efforts are effectively “intimidating and silencing those who dare to oppose it.”
Last April, the Trump administration released a list of demands for Harvard, but Harvard has yet to agree to the government’s terms.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is banning international students from attending Harvard University and seeking to freeze the school’s federal funding.
A U.S. district judge ruled in September that the Trump administration illegally cut more than $2 billion in research grants to Harvard University.
Yet just last month, Trump suggested in a post on Truth Social that he would seek $1 billion in damages from Harvard University.
The Trump administration also sought a $1 billion settlement from UCLA in August. The Department of Justice announced a lawsuit against UCLA in February.
