By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Monday it launched two more probes against Harvard University in its latest escalation against the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ivy League school and other top U.S. universities.
The U.S. Education Department said its civil rights office “opened two new investigations into Harvard University amid allegations that it continues to discriminate against students on the basis of race, color, and national origin” in violation of federal law.
The latest probes will look into whether Harvard uses race-based preferences in admissions after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that ended affirmative action in higher education, and into allegations of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus, the Education Department said in a statement.
Harvard task forces released reports last year saying Jewish and Muslim students at the university had faced bigotry and abuse.
A Harvard spokesperson said on Monday that the school is “firmly committed to confronting antisemitism” and has taken steps aimed at “preventing harassment and discrimination.”
Harvard does not discriminate on grounds of race, the spokesperson said, and complies with the law in admissions practices, including the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision.
“We are reviewing the U.S. Department of Education’s latest actions, which represent the government’s latest retaliatory actions against Harvard for its refusal to surrender our independence and constitutional rights,” the spokesperson said.
A deal to resolve the Trump administration’s probes against Harvard remains elusive.
Last week, the administration sued Harvard to recover billions of dollars over allegedly failing to protect Jewish students. The Trump administration also separately sued Harvard in February, accusing it of failing to comply with a federal investigation, while also seeking documents to determine whether the university considered race in its admissions process.
Education advocates have urged universities to push back against government efforts to collect more admissions data, saying they could lead to privacy violations. A former official from President Joe Biden’s administration described it as “a tool for anti-civil rights enforcement.”
CAMPAIGN AGAINST TOP SCHOOLS
U.S. President Donald Trump has attempted to crack down on universities and freeze their federal funds over pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, transgender policies, climate programs and diversity initiatives, leading to concerns over academic freedom, free speech and due process.
Efforts to freeze federal funds have faced legal and judicial roadblocks.
Trump has in particular cast pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic and alleged that universities, including Harvard, allowed antisemitism on campus.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly conflates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
Trump’s administration has reached deals to settle investigations against some schools including Columbia University in New York. Columbia has agreed to pay over $200 million to the government.
Academic experts have raised alarm over parts of those agreements, saying they set a precedent for “pay-to-play” deals.
Trump has not initiated equivalent probes into allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Editing by David Ljunggren, Aurora Ellis and Bill Berkrot)
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