{"id":44402,"date":"2026-08-14T13:25:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44402"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:25:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:25:42","slug":"judge-dismisses-trump-administration-lawsuit-alleging-harvard-failed-to-protect-jewish-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44402","title":{"rendered":"Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit alleging Harvard failed to protect Jewish students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260813-harvard-campus-ch-1309-9cd09a.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-17a05b\" class=\"body-graf\">WASHINGTON \u2014 A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by the Trump administration \u200cthat alleged that Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-e08910\" class=\"body-graf\">U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston said in his ruling that the administration\u2019s lawsuit, which was filed in March, had not plausibly shown an ongoing violation of \u200bfederal civil rights law on Harvard\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-b3b79e\" class=\"body-graf\">Stearns said the government\u2019s allegations focused largely on incidents \u200bamid protests over Israel\u2019s war in Gaza during the 2023-24 school year, with only \u2060a handful of later incidents alleged in March 2025 that were \u201ctoo isolated and episodic\u201d to support a \u200bclaim of ongoing civil rights violations.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a0ceb9\" class=\"body-graf\">The judge said the lawsuit did not adequately allege failures by the \u200bIvy 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 \u200bfederal funding.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-559a09\" class=\"body-graf\">The White House and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-c732e5\" class=\"body-graf\">The lawsuit came amid \u200ban escalating clash between the administration and Harvard, a leading target of President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/donald-trump\/\">Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> campaign to overhaul major U.S. universities. \u200cThe \u2060administration said in court papers that it was suing to \u201crecover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-145536\" class=\"body-graf\">The administration in December <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/us-appeals-harvard-court-victory-2-billion-funding-freeze-2025-12-19\/\">appealed a judge\u2019s order<\/a> that found it unlawfully terminated more than $2 billion in grants awarded to Harvard and could no longer cut off its research funding. In another case, a \u200bfederal judge last year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/harvard-urge-judge-extend-block-trumps-effort-bar-foreign-students-2025-05-29\/\">blocked<\/a> \u200bthe administration\u2019s efforts to \u2060revoke Harvard\u2019s ability to enroll international students.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d5dac1\" class=\"body-graf\">The civil rights lawsuit alleged that Harvard faculty and leadership \u201cturned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-7a36d4\" class=\"body-graf\">Harvard \u200bhas denied the claims and in an earlier statement called the lawsuit \u201cyet \u200banother pretextual and \u2060retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-aad5a5\" class=\"body-graf\">In a June court <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.mad.297801\/gov.uscourts.mad.297801.47.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">filing, <\/a>Harvard urged Stearns to dismiss the administration\u2019s lawsuit, saying the government had not alleged ongoing or \u2060imminent violations \u200bof Title VI.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-6f3b37\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">\u201cHarvard condemns antisemitism and is committed to ensuring \u200bthat Jewish and Israeli students, like all members of the Harvard community, can learn and participate fully in campus life free from \u200bharassment or exclusion,\u201d the university said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by the Trump administration \u200cthat alleged that Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston said in his ruling that the administration\u2019s lawsuit, which was filed in March, had not plausibly shown an ongoing violation of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260813-harvard-campus-ch-1309-9cd09a.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}