Harvard Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights: Students Spit On, Harassed with ‘Heil Hitler’ While University Did Nothing thumbnail

Harvard Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights: Students Spit On, Harassed with ‘Heil Hitler’ While University Did Nothing

By The Geller Report

The Trump administration officially finds Harvard in VIOLATION of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin……and ALL federal funding may now be canceled.

Ward Clark: If there aren’t some long faces around Harvard Yard this morning, there ought to be (Redstate).

Jewish Harvard students spit on, heckled with ‘heil Hitler’ while university turned a blind eye, shock Trump admin report says

NY Post: Jewish students at Harvard were spit on for wearing yarmulkes, stalked and subjected to chants of “heil Hitler” — and the Ivy League university was either “deliberately indifferent” or even a “willful participant” in the antisemitic abuse, according to a shocking report released by the Trump administration on Monday.

More than a quarter of the students reported feeling physically unsafe, and nearly 60% said they experienced “discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias on campus” in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, according to meetings with more than 500 Jewish students conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The letter also pointed to demonstrations that “denied Jewish and Israeli students access to campus spaces” as well as the anti-Israel encampments that “instilled fear in, and disrupted the studies of, Jewish and Israeli students.”

“Even worse, individuals who participated in the encampment received lax and inconsistent discipline—and as discipline was reviewed by higher levels among the faculty, it was often downgraded,” (emphasis theirs), the letter read.

From the Department of Education: Today, the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is notifying you that the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services has concluded its Title VI investigation regarding anti-Semitism at Harvard University.  After a thorough investigation, HHS OCR finds that Harvard University is in violent violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin (DOE).

Boom: DoJ Formally Finds Harvard Violated Civil-Rights Laws

Ed Morrissey

Canada retreated. Will Harvard?

Harvard president Alan Garber keeps saying he wants to find some accommodation with the Department of Education, but refuses to make significant changes. Instead, Garber keeps trying to get courts to force access to federal funds to which Harvard feels entitled, even while other universities see the writing on the wall and have thrown in the towel. Now the Department of Justice has upped the ante yet again, formally declaring that Harvard violated the Civil Rights Act by deliberately allowing anti-Semitic violence and intimidation on its campus:

In a letter sent to Harvard President Alan Garber on Monday and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, attorneys for the administration said the investigation found that Harvard knew Jewish and Israeli students felt threatened on its campus and acted with deliberate indifference.

The DoJ offered Harvard to explore the Hillsdale College option to avoid any further consequences for its failure to abide by Title VI. If not, the DoJ warns, the direction of the next lawsuit will get inverted and Harvard may have more legal trouble than it bargained for:

“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” the letter states. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”

Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A formal “notice of violation” of civil-rights law generally is a step that can come before either a lawsuit from the Justice Department or a voluntary resolution with the school. Under past presidential administrations, civil-rights investigations at universities usually ended with voluntary resolution agreements.

Harvard Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights, Trump Admin Finds While Threatening Remaining Federal Funding

‘Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies … has enabled anti-Semitism to fester,’ the administration writes

By: Jessica Schwalb, Washington Free Beacon, June 30, 2025:

Harvard University’s treatment of Jewish and Israeli students violated civil rights law, putting its federal funding at risk, the Trump administration told the Ivy League school on Monday.

Harvard “has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff,” the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism wrote in its letter. It detailed findings from a Title VI investigation conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, noting that a quarter of Jewish students reported feeling physically unsafe and anti-Semitic incidents, such as Jewish and Israeli students being assaulted and spat on.

The violation notice is the Trump administration’s latest escalation in its battle with Harvard over campus anti-Semitism, having already frozen nearly $3 billion in federal funding, revoked the school’s authorization to host international students, and proposed removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status. The move also typically precedes either a lawsuit from the Department of Justice or a resolution with the university, though it appears Harvard is weighing a deal.

“Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies—where individuals are sorted and judged according to their membership in an oppressed group and not individual merit—has enabled anti-Semitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to hide their identities and ancestral stories,” the letter reads. Failing to “institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources.”

Harvard spokeswoman Sarah Kennedy-O’Reilly said the university shared its recently published anti-Semitism task force report with the Trump administration. Though the report details pervasive anti-Semitism at Harvard, Kennedy-O’Reilly said the school “strongly disagrees” with the administration’s findings.

“Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings,” she told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement. “Harvard has made significant strides to combat bigotry, hate and bias,” she added. “We are not alone in confronting this challenge and recognize that this work is ongoing.”

“In responding to the government’s investigation, Harvard not only shared its comprehensive and retrospective Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias Report but also outlined the ways that it has strengthened policies, disciplined those who violate them, encouraged civil discourse, and promoted open, respectful dialogue,” Kennedy-O’Reilly said in a statement. “Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings.”

The Trump administration’s Monday letter, however, notes that “Harvard did not dispute our findings of fact, nor could it.”

The administration pointed to a number of examples of anti-Semitic incidents that Jewish and Israeli students faced at Harvard, noting that some “hid their kippahs for fear of being harassed and concealed their Jewish identity from classmates for fear of ostracization.” It called out images of anti-Semitic tropes that circulated, such as one showing a dollar sign inside a Star of David and stickers of the Israeli flag with a swastika in place of the Star of David.

AUTHOR

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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