A judge in Massachusetts dismissed a federal lawsuit Thursday that accused Harvard University of not taking sufficient steps to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.
The lawsuit, filed by the Justice Department in March, said students were blocked from school buildings in 2023 and 2024 by protesters and forced to wear baseball caps to hide their yarmulkes, a traditional head covering worn by many observant Jewish men.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns found that the complaint largely detailed incidents in the 2023-2024 school year, when there was a pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard. It also listed three incidents in March 2025: one in which a Harvard employee allegedly tore down posters of Israeli hostages, and two cases in which the government said Harvard failed to take action against anti-Israel protesters who violated university rules, including breaching barricades outside an event featuring a former Israeli official and a “die in” on the steps of the main campus library.
Stearns, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, said the incidents were “too isolated and episodic” to demonstrate that Harvard is not complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination by schools that receive federal money.
The judge wrote that the government’s complaint is “devoid of any factual allegations” that the university has failed to comply with the law since the administration formally notified Harvard that it needed to comply with the law in June 2025. He said the law was intended to bring entities into compliance with the law, not to punish them for past violations.
A Justice Department official said in a statement Thursday that the agency is considering how to respond to Thursday’s decision.
“We disagree with the ruling and are assessing next steps,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the department. Dhillon said the administration continues to investigate antisemitism nationally.
Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.
More than 100 Jewish faculty and staff signed a letter condemning the Justice Department’s antisemitism lawsuit against the school this year, according to the Harvard Crimson.
But Shabbos Kestenbaum, a former Harvard graduate student who sued the university in 2024 for failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students, said Harvard should be punished for past civil rights violations, even if it has since tried to address the problem.
“They need to be held accountable for their violations against American Jewish students,” said Kestenbaum, now a political commentator with PragerU, a conservative nonprofit organization. Kestenbaum ultimately settled his lawsuit against Harvard last year after the same judge in Thursday’s ruling said he could proceed to trial.
The Anti-Defamation League also said Thursday’s ruling does not erase the antisemitism that Jewish and Israeli members of Harvard’s community faced after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the nation’s subsequent response in Gaza.
“Harvard still has work to do,” Shira Goodman, an ADL spokesperson, said in a statement. “While Harvard has taken meaningful steps to address antisemitism, it will take continued vigilance, sustained implementation, and appropriate oversight to ensure Jewish and Israeli students, staff and faculty can feel safe and participate fully in campus life.”
Kenneth L. Marcus, chief executive of the Brandeis Center, a nonprofit legal center that fights antisemitism, called the ruling a “significant and troubling departure” from long-standing civil rights enforcement. In a statement, he said the judge’s ruling raises the bar for these kinds of cases by requiring the government to show that an institution failed to resolve the issue at hand and that subsequent violations occurred.
The ruling is the latest setback for the Trump administration in its efforts to force the Ivy League institution to agree to pay $1 billion and make other changes to address policies that White House officials have claimed are illegal, “woke” and antisemitic.
In February, the Justice Department filed a separate lawsuit against the school, accusing it of withholding admissions records. The government has said it needs the records to make sure Harvard has complied with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that generally bars it from using race in admissions. A hearing in that case is slated for next month.
The Trump administration has used a number of tools to pressure Harvard, including attempting to halt federal grants and contracts, cutting off visas for international students and threatening to pull its tax-exempt status. Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon would end military training programs for officers at the university.
Harvard has successfully fought some of those efforts in court. For instance, a federal court judge barred the administration from using antisemitism allegations to block grants to the school.
In that case, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, said the government was using antisemitism as a “smoke screen” to punish the school and freeze or cancel more than $2 billion in research grants. She said the efforts violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights and amounted to “retaliation, unconstitutional conditions, and unconstitutional coercion.”
The same judge blocked the Trump administration last year from stopping Harvard from enrolling international students.
Some other universities, including Brown, Cornell and Columbia, have struck deals with the administration, while others, such as UCLA, have continued to battle with the government.
The California State University system sued the Education Department in March for threatening to withhold federal funding because San José State University allowed a transgender woman to compete on its women’s volleyball team in past seasons. The university system said San José State was following the guidance in effect at the time and should not be retroactively punished based on the new administration’s interpretation of the law.
In the latest front, the Justice Department has accused several medical schools — including those at UCLA, the University of California at Davis and Yale — of continuing to consider race in admissions in violation of the law. The Trump administration has also opened investigations into others, including Dartmouth College.
Meanwhile, Yale University leaders have faced backlash over their efforts to try to reach a settlement with the administration.
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