Washington — The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit against Harvard University on Friday, alleging that it violated federal civil rights law by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks by Hamas.
In a 44-page suit, the Justice Department asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to find that Harvard unlawfully discriminated against those students through what it said was the school’s “intentional conduct and its deliberate indifference to discriminatory harassment of Jewish and Israeli students and creation of a hostile educational environment” after Oct. 7.
The lawsuit is the latest front in the Trump administration’s ongoing battle with Harvard. Since President Trump returned to office, his administration has attempted to cancel billions of dollars in federal funding to Harvard because of what it said was its failure to address antisemitism on campus.
The school sued the Trump administration over the funding freezes, and a federal judge ruled last September that the government violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights and federal law when it halted the nearly $2 billion in federal grants.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
