Biden Identifies Major Civil Rights Issues at Harvard, Not Just Trump

Many people assume federal civil-rights scrutiny of antisemitism at Harvard is a recent, partisan development.

Headlines shout about President “Trump’s War on Harvard,” “Trump’s Harvard Vendetta” and “His Harvard Hate Campaign.”

In reality, such regulatory oversight is mandated by law and has been consistently enforced by both Republican and Democratic administrations, including the previous one.

The Biden administration expressed concerns that Harvard’s handling of antisemitic harassment complaints might not fully adhere to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—concerns that echoed the issues in the Trump administration’s demand letter from April 11.

Harvard discreetly agreed to a voluntary resolution with the Office of Civil Rights of the Biden Department of Education on January 17, just days before the university resolved two lawsuits with Jewish students and shortly before Trump returned to the White House.

I’ve been working directly with Jewish Harvard students since the campus exploded in October 2023, so these findings did not surprise me.

I witnessed firsthand the distress and frustration many experienced and watched closely as the university failed to respond effectively.

In one glaring example, two students charged with assault and battery of a Jewish student during an Oct. 18, 2023, anti-Israel campus protest weren’t disciplined. Instead, Harvard rewarded them.

The Harvard Law Review gave Ibrahim Bharmal a $65,000 fellowship.

Bharmal, featured on the law school’s admissions website, will spend his fellowship at California’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations — whose cofounder and executive director, Nihad Awad, said, “I was happy to see people breaking the siege” with Gaza’s Oct. 7 attack.

The other student, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, was voted a class marshal by his Harvard Divinity School classmates. Harvard let both students graduate without consequence.

The resolution agreement, which should help all students, is significant, but it barely made news. Harvard made no public announcement. Most media outlets ignored the story.

Instead, much coverage misleadingly frames federal scrutiny of campus antisemitism as beginning with the new Trump-era task force.

I strongly support the rule of law and its being applied equally to all. I champion — at the same time — the First Amendment, federal funding of lawful basic research and robust enforcement of civil-rights protections.

But let’s be clear: Assault, discrimination, harassment, vandalism, trespassing and support for terrorist organizations are not protected speech. I write this as an American citizen and registered Democrat.

The Office of Civil Rights launched its investigation into Harvard in November 2023, following allegations of discrimination and harassment against Jewish students. While it later closed this investigation — a standard practice when federal lawsuits are pending — it maintained its oversight.

In a heartening development, even as the Biden team reviewed Harvard’s handling of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students’ harassment claims, it continued to examine records and information directly related to the harassment of Jewish students.

The OCR’s Jan. 17 letter referenced the two federal lawsuits filed in 2024 alleging Harvard’s “deliberate indifference” and noted several disturbing examples. A federal court cited in one suit an allegation of “student-on-student harassment” and denied Harvard’s motion to dismiss both lawsuits.

Students repeatedly told me they struggled to find the appropriate channels to report harassment. When they did file complaints, responses were often slow, inadequate or dismissive — falling short of the prompt and effective response Title VI requires.

Even more troubling, Harvard would not pursue investigations unless students revealed their identities to alleged harassers.

This policy had a chilling effect, discouraging students from coming forward. Besides violating Title VI, the university may have breached its duty of care to ensure students’ physical safety.

The OCR confirmed these failures and found Harvard often failed to create or keep records of complaints — a serious compliance lapse that undermines accountability.

At many Harvard schools, the offices generally responsible for handling discrimination complaints — formerly called Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging — appeared not to have fulfilled their duties.

Harvard has since renamed these offices, but a new name is not enough.

Notably, the Biden agreement, which required Harvard to submit revised policies and procedures to the Office of Civil Rights by May 17 for review and approval, closely mirrors language from the Trump administration’s April 11 letter — which also called on Harvard to “immediately reform its student discipline policies and procedures so as to swiftly and transparently enforce its existing disciplinary policies with consistency and impartiality.”

Both administrations focused on reviewing Harvard’s response to reports of a hostile environment during the 2023-2025 academic years.

The Biden deal requires Harvard to provide “all formal and informal reports or complaints, received by the University alleging harassment based on shared ancestry, and the University’s response to those reports or complaints.”

Similarly, the Trump administration required that “Harvard must investigate and carry out meaningful discipline for all violations that occurred during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years.”

The resolution agreement is a step forward. Whether Harvard’s revised policies and efforts will be enough remains to be seen.

The findings of Harvard’s own Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias vindicated these concerns and the need for decisive action.

The task force further recommends that Harvard develop a central hub for pluralism, implicitly acknowledging the need to protect academic freedom from Harvard’s own monoculture — a culture that has driven away distinguished scholars and researchers and led to documented discrimination against Jewish students and others.

Harvard also has to do more to comply with its January 2025 settlement with suing Jewish students. While all terms are not public, Harvard did commit to hiring someone to oversee all complaints of antisemitism — but still hasn’t announced anyone for that position.

I’m committed to helping Harvard return to its stated mission and to improving everyone on campus’ safety and well-being.

Equal civil rights, as guaranteed the Civil Rights Act’s Title VI and Title VII, should be a nonpartisan, uncontroversial American value.

Clarence Schwab is the founder and managing partner of Kronor Capital and a cofounder of Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance.