A student holds up the flag of Palestine during the commencement ceremony at Harvard University on May 23, 2024, in Cambridge, Massachusetts [Charles Krupa/AP Photo]By Al Jazeera Staff and ReutersPublished On 20 Mar 202620 Mar 2026
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, seeking billions of dollars in restitution for allegedly neglecting the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students.
The Department of Justice announced the lawsuit on Friday, stating that the university “allowed anti-semitism to flourish” amid uproar over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The university’s policies, according to the complaint, “sent the clear message to Harvard’s Jewish and Israeli community that the indifference was not an accident; they were being intentionally excluded and effectively denied equal access to educational opportunities.”
Harvard quickly rejected the lawsuit’s allegations, saying it was “yet another pretextual and retaliatory action” from the Trump administration.
Trump has been in a longstanding feud with Harvard since returning to office for a second term as president in 2025.
In statement, Harvard pointed out that it has taken steps to address anti-Semitism on campus, including through new training and disciplinary processes.
“Harvard cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus,” a spokesperson for the university said.
“Harvard’s efforts demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference.”
It is unclear the exact amount in damages the Trump administration is seeking from Harvard, the oldest university still in operation in the US.
But Friday’s lawsuit points to nearly $2.6bn in federal grants awarded to the university from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The lawsuit suggests the Trump administration is seeking to recoup all federal grants issued to Harvard since October 2023, when student protests erupted against the war in Gaza.
The lawsuit will be litigated before the court of US District Judge Richard Stearns, who was appointed under President Bill Clinton.
Since the start of his second term, Trump has frequently used the pretext of combatting anti-Semitism to demand greater control over US universities, which he depicts as hotbeds of discrimination.
He campaigned for re-election in part on pledges to address the widespread Palestinian solidarity protests on US campuses, and within months of taking office, he had suspended $400m in federal grants to Columbia University, one of the schools closely associated with the protest movement.
The Trump administration then issued a list of demands to Columbia, which included banning face masks, placing one academic department under the supervision of a “receivership” and allowing outside law enforcement to arrest “agitators”.
On March 22, 2025, Columbia struck a deal with the administration. Later that year, in July, it agreed to pay nearly $220m in penalties.
The aggressive manoeuvring against Columbia became the template for Trump’s pressure campaigns against other top US schools, including Brown, Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
It also coincided with a push to arrest and deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activism, including Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk.
The government has reportedly worked with pro-Israel groups such as Canary Mission and Betar US that monitor student activists and pass along their names to federal authorities.
Federal Judge William Young ruled in September that the Trump administration had violated the right to free speech rights by seeking to deport pro-Palestine students and scholars.
Young wrote that the Trump administration’s effort effectively “intimidate and silence anyone who dares oppose them”.
In April last year, the Trump administration issued a list of demands to Harvard, but it has yet to agree with the government’s terms.
In the interim, the Trump administration has attempted to bar Harvard from enrolling foreign students and has attempted to freeze the school’s federal funds.
A US district judge ruled in September that the Trump administration had illegally slashed more than $2bn in research grants to Harvard.
Still, just last month, Trump suggested he would be seeking $1bn in damages from Harvard in a post on Truth Social.
The Trump administration also sought a $1bn settlement from UCLA in August. The DOJ announced a lawsuit against UCLA in February.
