The Justice Department filed a new lawsuit Friday against Harvard University, saying its leadership failed to address antisemitism on campus, creating grounds for the government to freeze existing grants and seek repayment for grants already paid.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, is another missive in a protracted battle between the administration of President Donald Trump and the elite university.
“The United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures and brings this action to compel Harvard to comply” with federal civil rights law, the Justice Department wrote in the lawsuit, “and to recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.”
Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a previous lawsuit, a federal judge ruled the government was using allegations of antisemitism as a “smokescreen” to cut funding from the university.
Since he took office, Trump has targeted elite universities he believes are overrun by left-wing ideology and antisemitism, freezing billions in research grants.
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