On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) determined that Harvard University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by showing deliberate indifference to the harassment of Jewish and Israeli students. The OCR concluded that, from October 7, 2023, to the present, Harvard failed to adequately respond to severe and pervasive incidents involving students and faculty that targeted individuals based on their actual or perceived Jewish or Israeli identity.
Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin—including ethnic or ancestral identity—by institutions receiving federal funding. Between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, Harvard and its subrecipients received more than $794 million in federal financial assistance from HHS.
The Notice of Violation cites extensive documentation, including Harvard’s internal policies, findings from its Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, conclusions from a congressional task force on campus antisemitism, and a range of credible media reports. The OCR found that Harvard failed to address incidents of vandalism, harassment, and even physical violence over a 19-month period, constituting a violation of federal civil rights protections.
The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism sent the following letter to Harvard University on Monday:
Dr. Alan Garber
President
Harvard University
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Re: Notice of Violation
Dear Dr. Garber,
Harvard holds the regrettable distinction of being among the most prominent and visible breeding ground for race discrimination, as the Supreme Court noted in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023). That legacy of discrimination persists with Harvard’s continued anti-Semitism. Any institution that refuses to meet its duties under federal law may not receive a wide range of federal privileges.
Today, the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is notifying you that the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services has concluded its Title VI investigation regarding anti-Semitism at Harvard University. After a thorough investigation, HHS OCR finds that Harvard University is in violent violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin.
The enclosed Notice of Violation details the findings of fact supporting a conclusion that Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff. For example:
• The majority of Jewish students reported experiencing negative bias or discrimination on campus, while a quarter felt physically unsafe.
• Jewish and Israeli students were assaulted and spit on; they hid their kippahs for fear of being harassed and concealed their Jewish identity from classmates for fear of ostracization.
• Images were widely circulated among the Harvard community that trafficked in obvious anti-Semitic tropes, including one that showed a dollar sign inside a Star of David. The campus was vandalized with anti-Semitic stickers, including one that showed the Israeli flag with a swastika in place of the Star of David.
• The campus was wracked by demonstrations that flagrantly violated the University’s rules of conduct. The demonstrations included calls for genocide and murder, and denied Jewish and Israeli students access to campus spaces.
• The heart of campus was overrun by an impermissible, multiweek encampment that instilled fear in, and disrupted the studies of, Jewish and Israeli students. Even worse, individuals who participated in the encampment received lax and inconsistent discipline—and as the discipline was reviewed by higher levels among the faculty, it was often downgraded. By the end of the process, even accounting only for the students that were charged, only a fraction received some sort of discipline, and none were suspended. A member of Harvard’s own leadership called the disciplinary process “not fair” and “not right.”
Harvard did not dispute our findings of fact, nor could it. These facts, while tragic for the individuals involved, are important to address for a broader, historical reason as well. As history has proven, the failure to face the reality of anti-Semitism can have catastrophic effects. The Holocaust engulfed Europe due to the “[d]isbelief, incredulity, and denial on the part of both victims and onlookers” which “worked to the advantage of those who wanted to eradicate the Jews.”
Harvard’s inaction in the face of these civil rights violations is a clear example of the demographic hierarchy that has taken hold of the University. Equal defense of the law demands that all groups, regardless of race or national origin, are protected. Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies—where individuals are sorted and judged according to their membership in an oppressed group identity and not individual merit—has enabled anti-Semitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to hide their identities and ancestral stories.
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. Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.
