The Trump administration has accused Harvard University officials of failing to comply with an ongoing civil rights investigation into alleged campus antisemitism, The Boston Globe reported.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a letter to Harvard president Alan Garber that it was referring the civil rights investigation to the U.S. Department of Justice, which it is permitted to do in cases where “compliance under Title VI cannot be obtained voluntarily.”
The letter, written by Paula Stannard, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, also referenced legal actions taken by Harvard, which has fought back against frozen federal research funding and other matters.
“Rather than voluntarily comply with its obligations under Title VI, Harvard has chosen scorched-earth litigation against the Federal government,” Stannard wrote. “The parties’ several months’ engagement has been fruitless.”
Harvard did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
The letter comes as Harvard is reportedly considering a $500 million settlement with the Trump administration to close current investigations and unfreeze $2 billion in federal research funding. Harvard is reportedly mulling a settlement even though a judge appears to view its case favorably.
If Harvard settles, it will add to the list of wealthy and highly visible institutions that have yielded to the Trump administration’s demands in recent weeks. Columbia University agreed to far-reaching changes and a $221 million settlement to restore federal funding and close investigations into antisemitism on campus that stemmed from pro-Palestinian protests in 2024. Brown University also struck a deal with the Trump administration to restore $510 million in research funding, agreeing to various concessions but no payout to the federal government.
As a potential settlement with the Trump administration looms, some Harvard faculty members sent a letter to the president and board, urging Garber to push back on what they called “the Trump administration’s assault on the vibrancy and inclusiveness of U.S. higher education.”
Signed by multiple well-known scholars, the letter exhorted Garber not to “compromise core university and academic-freedom values that generations before us have worked to define and sustain,” and to resist ceding power to the federal government over hiring and admissions.
