A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dismissed the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University, dealing a blow to the government’s efforts to force the school to make a deal.
The lawsuit was part of a broader pressure campaign to force the university to comply with a variety of government demands on issues that include its handling of antisemitism and race in admissions.
Judge Richard G. Stearns of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts granted Harvard’s motion to throw out the case, saying that the antisemitic incidents cited in the administration’s March lawsuit were “too isolated and episodic” to show that Harvard is breaking the law.
In its lawsuit, filed in the spring, the Trump administration had accused the university of turning “a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.” The administration said that Harvard had allowed anti-Israel protesters to violate school rules “with impunity” after the war in Gaza began in 2023.
A spokesman for Harvard declined to comment. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
The administration accused Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination in programs that receive federal money.
The lawsuit stated that Jewish and Israeli students had been subject to “hostility, harassment and intimidation,” during a time when students were holding pro-Palestinian protests over the war in Gaza.
It cited a conflict from 2023 in which a Jewish student trying to film a “die-in” protest at Harvard was surrounded by protesters, who tried to block his camera with scarves and jostled him. The lawsuit repeatedly cited the report of a task force Harvard created to investigate episodes of antisemitism on campus.
The university argued in a brief filed in June that Harvard for several years had “engaged in sustained, institution-wide efforts to identify and address antisemitism on campus.”
Judge Stearns sided with Harvard in his ruling, noting that the Trump administration’s lawsuit focused mostly on incidents during the 2023-24 school year.
The antisemitic incidents cited by the administration do not support “a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day,” the judge wrote.
The Trump administration in its lawsuit sought the right to deny federal grants to Harvard. But the judge said the law was designed to force a school into compliance, not to penalize it.
Other Trump-Harvard litigation continues to grind through federal courts, mostly out of sight, as the two sides build lengthy records of briefs and legal arguments.
Another Boston federal judge ruled in September that the Trump administration had improperly frozen grants to Harvard. The administration said it had done so in response to the school’s tolerating harassment of Jewish students.
The Trump administration appealed, and the case is progressing. In a legal filing this spring, the president’s lawyers sought to show Harvard’s “long, sordid history of antisemitism” by citing Judah Monis, a Jew hired as a Harvard professor of Hebrew some 300 years ago, who had to convert to Christianity to join the faculty. That injustice was in 1722, decades before the Declaration of Independence.
In July, more than 10,000 alumni, from members of the Class of 1950 to the Class of 2026, filed a brief in support of Harvard, arguing that “universities like Harvard can only manifest their mission, values, and foundational principles if they can operate with academic freedom.”
Harvard’s battles with the Trump administration have broader implications for the federal government’s relationship with higher education. Many universities rely heavily on federal financial support to conduct research on cancer treatments, agriculture and other topics.
In late July, more than three dozen schools filed a legal brief supporting Harvard, saying that cutting research money to universities “jeopardizes American innovation and economic growth by severely limiting their ability to play their vital, longstanding roles in expanding scientific knowledge.”
Harvard and the government are also in a legal battle after the Trump administration tried to stop Harvard from hosting international students. A federal judge ruled in Harvard’s favor in June 2025. The government is appealing.
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