A federal judge has dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against Harvard University, which alleged the institution failed to adequately address antisemitism and discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students on campus. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns ruled on Thursday that the incidents cited by the Justice Department were "too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day."
The lawsuit, filed by the Trump administration in March, accused Harvard of having "turned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis" on campus. Stearns, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton, noted in his order that the complaint focused heavily on incidents that occurred during the 2023-2024 academic year.
According to the ruling, only three incidents were alleged to have occurred after that period, all of which took place nearly a full year later and more than one academic year before the case was filed, in March 2025. Representatives for the DOJ and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.