(The Center Square) – The Trump administration threatened to cut all federal funding from Harvard Monday after an investigation found the school failed to protect Jewish students from harassment.
A letter signed by Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, to Harvard’s President, Alan Garber, said that the university is in “violent violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“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,” Dhillon’s letter reads.
The investigation found that Harvard is “deliberately indifferent to the severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment of Jewish and Israeli students by its own students and faculty.”
Members of the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said the investigation was based on findings from task forces on antisemitism through Harvard and Congress; Harvard’s policies and procedures; and media reports over a 19-month period depicting antisemitic vandalism, harassment, and physical violence.
“Harvard’s public pledges to improve its disciplinary framework for harassment and misconduct are inadequate to address these serious findings,” said Paula Stannard, director of the Office of Civil Rights Health and Human Services.
The letter accused Harvard of maintaining a “hostile environment” toward Jewish and Israeli students.
“This hostile environment includes harassing speech, threats and intimidation targeting Jewish and Israeli students, including calls for genocide and murder,” the letter reads.
The letter also accuses Harvard of denying Jewish and Israeli students access to campus libraries, dining halls, dorms and other common areas; participation in extracurricular activities; and safe class attendance.
The administration said Harvard did not apply uniform disciplinary action to students and faculty who violated its rules against harassment “resulting in a patchwork application of sanctions that Harvard inconsistently reduced or reversed.”
The announcement follows months of threats and a possible settlement campaign between the Ivy League university and the Trump administration.
The administration has already cut billions of dollars in federal research funding to the university. In April, the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants to the university.
On social media, President Donald Trump has suggested taking Harvard’s funding and investing it into trade schools, the Center Square previously reported.
Supporters of Harvard said funding cuts would negatively impact the university’s medical research. About 11% of Harvard’s revenue is funded by federal taxpayers, The Center Square previously reported.
The funding brawl has centered around Harvard’s policies on combatting discrimination, particularly against Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.
