The US Department of Justice is challenging a federal judge’s dismissal of its antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University, seeking to revive a case that could require the university to return nearly $1 billion in federal grants, JNS reported.
The Justice Department filed its appeal Thursday with the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, contesting US District Judge Richard G. Stearns’s Aug. 13 decision to throw out the lawsuit.
Filed in March, the federal case accuses Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to adequately address antisemitism and discrimination targeting Jewish and Israeli students after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
According to the government, Jewish and Israeli students were subjected to harassment, assaults and intimidation on campus, while Harvard failed to enforce its own policies against those responsible.
The Justice Department is asking the court to require Harvard to comply with Title VI and recover federal funding that the government says the university received while failing to comply with the law. When the lawsuit was filed, Harvard was slated to receive more than $2.6 billion through active grants from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Stearns dismissed the case after concluding that the government had not adequately demonstrated that Harvard was still violating Title VI after being formally notified of the allegations in June 2025.
The judge characterized the incidents presented by the government as “too isolated and episodic” to establish “a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day.”
Stearns pointed out that the government’s allegations largely centered on events during the 2023-24 academic year and identified only three incidents occurring in March 2025.
He also ruled that the purpose of Title VI enforcement is to bring federally funded institutions into compliance with civil rights requirements, rather than impose punishment for violations that occurred in the past.
Under the First Circuit’s schedule, Justice Department attorneys will have 40 days from the filing of the appellate record to submit their opening brief.
The administration is also pursuing two separate appeals involving Harvard before the First Circuit. One concerns $2.2 billion in federal funding, while the other involves the university’s ability to enroll international students.
The freezing of more than $2 billion in federal research funding for Harvard was among the measures taken by the Trump administration against Harvard over its handling of antisemitism on campus.
President Donald Trump subsequently said Harvard had agreed to pay $500 million and establish trade schools as part of an agreement with his administration. That proposed deal ultimately did not materialize.
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News’ North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)
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