A federal judge dismissed the Department of Justice’s antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University on Thursday, ruling that campus hostility following the October 2023 Hamas slaughter of Israelis was too isolated to prove Harvard has been violating federal civil rights law.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns tossed out the government’s enforcement action, finding that its complaint relied almost entirely on events from the 2023 and 2024 academic year rather than evidence of ongoing noncompliance.
“Without diminishing any concern arising from these occurrences, the court finds them, singly and collectively, to be too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day,” wrote Judge Stearns, a Clinton appointee.
The Justice Department sued Harvard in March, alleging the university was “deliberately indifferent” to the harassment and intimidation of Jewish and Israeli students after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The suit sought to cut off future federal funding to Harvard and claw back nearly $1 billion in grants already issued.
More than 100 Jewish faculty and staff members criticized the lawsuit as government overreach, while Harvard maintained it had already strengthened its campus safety policies. The university asked the judge to dismiss the case in May, arguing the government’s complaint failed to allege an ongoing, present-day violation of Title VI.
“The court begins (and ends) with Harvard’s first argument,” Judge Stearns wrote, finding that the government had not “sufficiently pled an ongoing violation of Title VI.”
When The Washington Times asked for comment, the White House referred to the Justice Department.
DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said the department disagrees with the ruling and is assessing next steps.
“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is actively investigating antisemitism nationwide,” she said in a statement to The Times. “The Civil Rights Division has an extensive and active portfolio of antisemitism enforcement, including indictments, prosecutions, settlements and investigations across the country.”
Thursday’s ruling is the latest turn in a legal fight that traces back to Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation in January 2024 after her widely criticized congressional testimony on campus antisemitism put Harvard at the center of the national debate and drew sustained federal scrutiny.
It also marks at least the fourth Harvard antisemitism ruling from Judge Stearns, who has separately allowed private plaintiffs’ Title VI claims against the university to proceed.
The Trump administration froze more than $2 billion in Harvard research funding in April 2025, citing antisemitism. Harvard sued, and Judge Allison Burroughs ruled last September that the freeze was unconstitutional retaliation, writing that the government had “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”
The administration appealed that ruling in December, and it remains pending before the 1st Circuit.
Harvard’s own Presidential Task Force reports, released in April 2025, documented incidents of students being harassed, spat on or avoiding campus out of fear for their safety. Among Jewish students surveyed, 67% reported discomfort expressing their opinions at Harvard compared with 80% of Muslim students in a parallel report on anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias.
Since then, university leadership has instituted clearer protest guidelines, expanded Jewish history and culture course offerings, and added training programs to address discrimination.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.