A federal judge in Boston dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit accusing Harvard of ignoring harassment of Jewish students, a ruling the Justice Department says it plans to challenge.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns threw out the case Thursday, finding that the Department of Justice failed to prove Harvard had committed an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law. The incidents the government cited were "too isolated and episodic" to establish a persistent pattern of discrimination at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus, Stearns ruled.
The decision hands Harvard a courtroom win in a broader clash with the Trump White House that has stretched across multiple lawsuits, billions of dollars in disputed federal funding, and sharp disagreements over what the university owes its Jewish students. The DOJ filed the suit in March 2025 under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs that receive federal money. The government sought to recover billions of dollars in research grants awarded to Harvard since October 2023.
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, signaled the fight is not over:
"We disagree with the ruling and are assessing next steps."
Harvard did not immediately comment on the Thursday ruling.
The administration's lawsuit painted a grim picture of campus life for Jewish students after Hamas's October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel triggered waves of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities nationwide. In its filing, the DOJ alleged Harvard officials did nothing as Jewish students were "harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon."
But Judge Stearns found the evidence fell short. Most of the incidents the government pointed to occurred during the 2023, 24 academic year, with only a handful from March 2025. That timeline, in the judge's view, did not add up to the kind of sustained, systemic failure that Title VI requires.
The ruling raises a practical question the DOJ will have to answer if it appeals or refiles: how many incidents, over how long a period, does it take to prove a university has tolerated a hostile environment? Stearns drew the line, and the administration landed on the wrong side of it.
The dismissed lawsuit was only one front in a wider confrontation between Harvard and the Trump administration. After Trump returned to office, the White House issued a list of demands to the university. Harvard refused. Trump officials then moved to cut the school's federal research funding and limit its ability to enroll foreign students.
A separate federal judge, whose identity was not specified in court filings referenced in reporting, ordered the administration to reverse more than $2.6 billion in federal funding cuts to Harvard. That judge went further than Stearns, finding that the administration had placed unconstitutional conditions on federal funding and used antisemitism as a "smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault" on universities.
That language stung, and the administration rejected the characterization. But it underscores how far apart the courts and the executive branch remain on the question of what leverage the federal government can use to force universities into compliance on civil rights issues.
When the DOJ first filed the lawsuit in March 2025, Harvard pushed back with a statement saying the university "cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus."
Harvard President Alan M. Garber said the school formed a task force to combat antisemitism, hired a new provost and new deans, and reformed its discipline policies to make them "more consistent, fair and effective." Whether those steps amount to genuine reform or institutional self-defense dressed up as progress depends on who you ask, and neither the ruling nor the university's own statements settle that question.
Colleges found in violation of federal civil rights law typically reach compliance through voluntary agreements rather than courtroom judgments. Trump himself said the two sides had been close to reaching such an agreement before the case went to trial. What those terms looked like, and why talks broke down, remains unclear.
Dhillon's statement, "assessing next steps", leaves the door open to an appeal, a refiled case with a broader evidentiary record, or a shift in strategy altogether. The administration has not specified which path it will take.
Several questions remain unanswered. What specific demands did the White House make that Harvard refused? What were the terms of the near-agreement Trump referenced? And if the DOJ does appeal, will it bring forward additional incidents beyond the 2023, 25 window that Stearns found insufficient?
The dismissal does not mean Jewish students at Harvard were not harassed. The judge did not rule on whether the alleged incidents occurred, only on whether they met the legal threshold for a sustained civil rights violation. That distinction matters in a courtroom. It matters less to a student who was spat on walking to class.
If elite universities can weather federal civil rights lawsuits by running out the clock and pointing to a task force, the incentive structure is clear, and it does not favor the students the law was written to protect.
