A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Harvard University, rejecting claims that the institution failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitic harassment on campus.
Judge Richard Stearns ruled that the government had not plausibly demonstrated ongoing civil rights violations at the university. The incidents cited in the complaint were "too isolated and episodic" to support allegations of a systematic failure to address discrimination, Stearns wrote. The Department of Justice had filed the lawsuit in March, alleging that Harvard’s faculty and leadership tolerated a hostile environment during pro-Palestinian protests following the October 2023 Hamas attack.
The case was part of a broader campaign targeting elite universities. Trump previously moved to freeze $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard, a measure a judge later ruled unlawful. Other institutions, including Columbia and Northwestern, opted for multimillion-dollar settlements with the administration.