Trump Sues Harvard Over Alleged Civil Rights Violations & Antisemitism

The Administration of Donald Trump has sued Harvard University this Friday, alleging violations of the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli individuals. The legal action represents an escalation in the year-long conflict between the government and the institution, a prominent member of the Ivy League.

Both sides have experienced months of disagreement, including threats of investigation from the government and attempts to impose an agreement on the university, which has become the primary target of the White House’s efforts to reform higher education in the United States. The dispute appeared to reach its peak last year when the Republican administration threatened to withdraw federal funding for Harvard’s research programs. That attempt by Washington was blocked by a judge.

Now, through the lawsuit filed this Friday by the Department of Justice, Harvard authorities find themselves once again under pressure, accused of failing to address allegations of antisemitism on campus. The lawsuit serves as a pretext for the government to freeze existing grants and demand reimbursement of funds already paid.

Economically crippling Harvard, the wealthiest university in the country but reliant, like other private universities, on federal funds for its expensive research programs, is not the sole objective of the White House. Republicans have declared war on a higher education system they consider excessively liberal, seeking to reshape its ideology, excluding anything deemed “woke” and suppressing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) criteria in the admissions process.

Any institution that Washington believes engages in “anti-American and anti-conservative interests” is under scrutiny. These institutions, including some of the most important in the country, have resisted the demands of the White House.

“The United States will not and cannot tolerate these deficiencies, and is undertaking this action to compel Harvard to comply” with federal civil rights legislation—the Department of Justice writes in the complaint, filed in Massachusetts— “as well as to recover billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution,” discrimination, it is understood, against Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.

“Smoke Screen”

In the prolonged dispute between the Administration and the university, a federal judge previously ruled that the government was using accusations of antisemitism as a “smoke screen” to cut funding to the university.

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has targeted elite universities—which he believes are dominated by left-wing ideology and antisemitism—freezing billions in research grants. Increased scrutiny of admissions lists and a migration offensive, with visa cancellations, reduced the arrival of foreign students to the U.S. By 20% in August.

Alleged antisemitism on campuses—reportedly in demonstrations in favor of Gaza and demanding a ceasefire—initially, in October 2023 and especially in the spring of 2024, with a mobilization that swept across American campuses, provided the perfect pretext to launch an assault on universities and a broad offensive against freedom of expression.

This week, Leqaa Kordia, 33, who also participated in demonstrations near the Columbia campus against the war in Gaza, was released after being detained for more than a year in a Texas detention center. Kordia alleges she was detained for her activism, while authorities attribute it to the terms of her student visa, reportedly expired.

Like Jalil and Kordia, at least twenty students have been victims of the heightened scrutiny the Republican administration displays towards its ally, Israel. But a year later, with Gaza out of focus, buried under rubble and also by Trump’s proposed Gaza Peace Board, the White House’s ambition regarding universities goes far beyond accusations of antisemitism.