Trump administration probes Harvard for civil rights violations as US$2.3b funding freeze sparks legal battle

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - The Trump administration in late March announced it was launching a review of about US$9 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard over what it says is the school’s failure to protect from antisemitism. Since then, the Trump administration has frozen US$2.3 billion in funding to Harvard, threatened to strip its tax-exempt status and take away its ability to enrol foreign students, while demanding information on the university’s foreign ties, funding, students and faculty. — AFP pic

BOSTON, April 29 — President Donald Trump’s administration said on Monday it was probing whether Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review violated civil rights laws when the journal’s editors fast-tracked consideration of an article written by a member of a racial minority.

News of the new probe came hours after a federal judge agreed to expedite Harvard University’s lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from freezing US$2.3 billion (RM9.95 billion) in federal funding that the Ivy League school has warned will threaten vital medical and scientific research.

The announcement of the probe by the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services said Harvard Law Review editors may have engaged in “race-based discrimination” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.

A Harvard University representative said the school is “committed to ensuring that the programmes and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations.”

Representatives of the Harvard Law Review, a legally independent student-run organisation, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Since taking office, Trump has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs that aim to uplift marginalised groups who have faced historical inequity. He has cast those steps aimed at helping minorities as discriminatory against groups such as white people and men.

Harvard University said on Monday it was renaming its office for “equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging” to “Community and Campus Life.” Trump has passed executive orders aiming to dismantle DEI in the government and private sector.

Harvard’s announcement in an internal email did not lay out what would happen as a result of the renaming. It added that the work ahead “requires us to find new ways to bring people of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives together as one community, focusing on the unique experiences and contributions of the individual and not the broad demographic groups to which they belong.”

Earlier in the day, US District Judge Allison Burroughs during a brief hearing in Boston set a July 21 hearing for the case after Harvard warned that the funding freeze and additional threatened cuts were putting research at risk.

Monday’s hearing was the first she has held since Harvard sued last week after refusing to cede to what the university’s president said were illegal demands from an administration antisemitism task force “to control whom we hire and what we teach.”

Those demands included calls for the private university to restructure its governance, alter its hiring and admissions practices to ensure an ideological balance of viewpoints, and terminate certain academic programs.

Harvard has said that while it is committed to combating antisemitism, the administration’s sweeping demands violate the free speech guarantees of the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

Rather than seek a preliminary injunction blocking the freeze pending the outcome of the litigation, Harvard has opted to skip straight to the merits of the case, which both it and the US Department of Justice asked the judge to quickly address.

Harvard and other universities have seen federal funding threatened by the administration over how they handled pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that roiled campuses last year.

The schools have also been in the administration’s crosshairs over issues such as DEI, climate initiatives and transgender policies.

The Trump administration in late March announced it was launching a review of about US$9 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard over what it says is the school’s failure to protect from antisemitism.

Since then, the Trump administration has frozen US$2.3 billion in funding to Harvard, threatened to strip its tax-exempt status and take away its ability to enrol foreign students, while demanding information on the university’s foreign ties, funding, students and faculty.

Rights groups have raised free speech and academic freedom concerns over the steps by the government. — Reuters