A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit accusing Harvard University of failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment and discrimination.
U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston ruled that the government had not plausibly demonstrated an ongoing violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs.
Harvard University
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The administration filed the lawsuit in March, alleging that Harvard faculty members and university leaders had “turned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.”
Stearns said, however, that the government’s allegations focused largely on incidents surrounding protests over Israel’s war in Gaza during the 2023-24 academic year.
Only a handful of later incidents from March 2025 were cited, he said, and those were “too isolated and episodic” to establish an ongoing civil rights violation.
The judge also found that the lawsuit did not adequately allege misconduct by Harvard after the government informed the university in June 2025 that it was not complying with Title VI.
The White House and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The case was part of a broader confrontation between President Donald Trump’s administration and Harvard, one of the most prominent targets of his campaign to reshape major U.S. universities.
In court filings, the administration said it was seeking to “recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.”
Harvard denied the allegations and previously described the lawsuit as “yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.”
In a June filing seeking dismissal of the case, the university argued that the government had failed to allege any ongoing or imminent violations of Title VI.
“Harvard condemns antisemitism and is committed to ensuring that Jewish and Israeli students, like all members of the Harvard community, can learn and participate fully in campus life free from harassment or exclusion,” the university said.
The ruling marks another legal setback for the administration in its confrontation with Harvard.
In December, the administration appealed a separate ruling that found it had unlawfully terminated more than $2 billion in federal grants awarded to the university and barred it from further cutting off Harvard’s research funding on those grounds.
In another case last year, a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.