As previously reported, in March the Justice Department filed suit against Harvard University alleging discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Among other things, the suit sought injunctive relief, cutting off of future payments under existing grants to Harvard and recovery of all grant payments made to the University during the period that Title VI violations occurred. Now in United States v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, (D MA, Aug. 13, 2026), a Massachusetts federal district court dismissed the government's suit. It found injunctive relief inappropriate, saying in part:
The Amended Complaint focuses almost entirely on incidents that took place during the 2023-2024 school year. Only three incidents are alleged to have occurred after this period, all of which took place nearly a full year later (and more than one full academic year before this case was filed) in March of 2025. Without diminishing any concern arising from these occurrences, the court finds them, singly and collectively, to be too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day....
It found cutting off of grants inappropriate, saying in part:
... [T]he controlling statute unequivocally authorizes the Government to take action only if and after it “has advised the appropriate person or persons of the failure to comply with the requirement and has determined that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means.”... The Government provided the requisite notice underlying this action on June 30, 2025.... [T]he Amended Complaint is devoid of any factual allegations plausibly establishing that any events that might be construed as evidence of noncompliance occurred after June 30, 2025.
... Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with Title VI....
Harvard Crimson reports on the decision.
