Dive Brief:
- A federal judge on Thursday dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University, marking a win for the Ivy League institution in its ongoing legal war with the Trump administration.
- The agency sued Harvard in March over allegations it failed to protect its Jewish and Israeli students from harassment and discrimination. The DOJ sought to cut Harvard off from federal grant money, claw back already disbursed funds, and force changes to Harvard’s protest and disciplinary policies.
- But U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns sided with Harvard this week, ruling that the Trump administration had failed to prove the university is out of compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Dive Insight:
In its lawsuit, the DOJ leaned on June 2025 findings from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services alleging Harvard violated Title VI. Title VI prohibits federally funded institutions from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.
The DOJ asked the court to declare that Harvard violated Title VI and force it to pay back all federal grant money received while out of compliance.
Stearns instead granted Harvard's motion to dismiss.
In his four-page decision, he wrote that the Trump administration's case relies entirely on incidents that occurred more than a full academic year before it filed its lawsuit, with most taking place during the 2023-24 academic year.
The DOJ’s lawsuit provided examples of incidents it alleged showed Harvard’s “deliberate indifference” toward campus antisemitism. But Stearns ruled they were "too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day.”
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of DOJ’s civil rights division, said in an emailed statement Thursday that the agency disagrees with the ruling and is "assessing next steps."
Harvard did not immediately respond to questions on Thursday.
Stearns wrote that the federal government can only take enforcement action against an institution if it has been informed of its failure to comply with Title VI and cannot be brought into compliance voluntarily. And the Trump administration failed to plausibly argue that any event at Harvard demonstrated the university's noncompliance after June 2025 — when HHS gave Harvard notice of its findings — he said.
The judge also wrote that the federal government misconstrued the purpose of Title VI enforcement.
"Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with Title VI," he said.
Stearns’ decision did not directly address Harvard’s assertions that the lawsuit was retaliatory.
Thus far, the Trump administration has appealed its court losses in its conflict with Harvard. Even if the DOJ doesn’t appeal Thursday’s ruling, Harvard still faces a long road.
Last year, Harvard sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after the agency revoked its ability to enroll international students. A lower court blocked the move shortly afterward. That lawsuit is ongoing and before an appeals court.
And the DOJ sued Harvard in February for allegedly withholding admissions data amid a civil rights probe. The agency also opened another civil rights investigation in July into the university's financial aid practices, alleging that some programs may discriminate against American students.
