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.
Nearly 75% of Jewish students said they felt uncomfortable sharing their political opinions on campus.
President Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism informed Harvard President Alan Garber in a letter Monday that the university is in violation of federal civil rights laws over the antisemitism on campus, and warned that Harvard’s federal funding is in grave danger as a result.
“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 said.
The notice of violation follows an investigation led by HHS. The administration says that department alone has doled out nearly nearly $800 million to Harvard since 2023.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights also sent Garber the 57-page report documenting its findings, resulting from 50 “listening sessions” held with Jewish Harvard students.
The report cited alarming categories of behavior that reportedly took place on campus, which constitute a “pattern of unlawful and unchecked discrimination” at the university.
Among those were direct student-on-student harassment, targeted harassment by student groups, exclusion from campus spaces and institutional-level acceptance of antisemitism.
The findings of the report have been backed up by a lawsuit filed against the university by a group of Jewish students who said they started to avoid public spaces so as not to be harassed, one student who said he was followed and heckled by anti-Israel protesters, and another who was assaulted by two grad students at an anti-Israel protest.
There has also been repeated antisemitic vandalism at Harvard, including last October, when the Hillel center was covered in stickers that replaced the Star of David on the Israeli flag with swastikas.
Such incidents, the report claims, “went unheeded” by the university.
The violation notice follows another letter by the antisemitism task force which outlined a list of demands the school must meet or risk losing some $256 million in federal contracts, as well as $8.7 billion in additional “multi-year grant commitments.”
Harvard and the Trump administration have been locked in a simmering battle for months. Earlier this month, Trump signed a bombshell proclamation barring international students from entering the US to study at the Ivy League school.
“When a university refuses to uphold its legal obligations, including its recordkeeping and reporting obligations, the consequences ripple far beyond the campus,” the proclamation read in part, noting that it is of “national interest” to deny foreign nationals access to Harvard.
However a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocked the administration from revoking the school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification.
Following the judge’s ruling, Trump said Harvard was willing to make a deal, and hinted that discussions were happening behind the scenes to bring about an end to the protracted row.
“We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so. They have acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right,” Trump wrote on Truth Social June 20.
This latest salvo from the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism suggests Harvard remains a major target of the Trump administration.
Harvard defended its efforts to curtail antisemitism Monday.
“Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community,” the university said in a statement.
“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,” it continued.
“Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings.”
