On June 30, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights issued a Notice of Violation (full text) to Harvard University charging it with antisemitic discrimination in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Notice was transmitted along with a Letter (full text) from the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. The 57-page Notice of Violation concludes:
5. OCR finds that specific and repeated examples uncovered during our investigation establish a pattern of unlawful and unchecked discrimination at Harvard through: • direct student-on-student harassment; • targeted harassment by student groups; • exclusion from campus spaces; and • institutional-level acceptance of antisemitism….
As stated above, a school may be held liable under Title VI for its deliberate indifference to student-on-student harassment when it can be shown that: (1) students were “subject to ‘severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive’ … harassment”; (2) the harassment “caused the [students] to be deprived of educational opportunities or benefits”; (3) the school “knew of the harassment”; (4) the harassment occurred “in its programs and activities”; and (5) the school “was deliberately indifferent to the harassment such that its response (or lack thereof) is clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances.” … Based upon our investigation, OCR finds that Harvard University acted with deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment in violation of Title VI.
The Letter from the Task Force on Antisemitism reads in part:
Harvard’s inaction in the face of these civil rights violations is a clear example of the demographic hierarchy that has taken hold of the University. Equal defense of the law demands that all groups, regardless of race or national origin, are protected. Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies—where individuals are sorted and judged according to their membership in an oppressed group identity and not individual merit—has enabled anti-Semitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to hide their identities and ancestral stories.
Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government. Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again….
JNS reports on these developments.