House Republicans will investigate Harvard University‘s alleged noncompliance with civil rights law, following weeks of contentious debate about the school’s federal funding status.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) and Republican Leadership Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) announced the investigation on Thursday in a letter sent to Harvard’s president Alan Garber. The investigation centers around Harvard’s diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring methods that discriminate on the basis of race and the school’s lackluster approach to campus antisemitism, the representatives said.
President Donald Trump’s administration requested on April 11 that Harvard adopt “merit-based hiring reforms; merit-based admissions reforms; international admissions reforms; reforms to achieve viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring including the abolishment of criteria that function as ideological litmus tests; reforms to specific programs with egregious records of antisemitism and other bias” and more. When the university refused the administration’s demands, Trump froze $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard.
“Even as Harvard is apparently preparing to reject all federal financial assistance so it can avoid complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Harvard has received enormous sums from foreign sources, including from authoritarian governments,” lawmakers wrote. “According to reports derived from data collected from the Department of Education, Harvard University received over $894 million from foreign government sources during the time period of 2014 to 2019. Harvard received over $151 million from foreign governments—including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bangladesh—from January 2020 to October 2024. One analysis found that as foreign funding increased at institutions like Harvard, so did antisemitism.”
Lawmakers requested information related to Harvard’s “policies regarding hiring preferences based on race, color, sex, religion, or natural origin,” “policies regarding the admittance of any student that may have views contrary to that of the United States,” communications about reforming programs “with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias,” and more.
Although Harvard rejected the Trump administration’s initial demands, the university said that it was open to discussions with the federal government, but would “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”
In their letter to the university, Republicans wrote that “Harvard is apparently so unable or unwilling to prevent unlawful discrimination that the institution, at your direction, is refusing to enter into a reasonable settlement agreement proposed by federal officials intended to put Harvard back in compliance with the law.”
“No matter how entitled your behavior, no institution is entitled to violate the law,” the letter adds. “[I]f Harvard, or any institution for that matter, does not wish to comply with this basic legal obligation, the proper avenue for achieving this is simple: do not take federal financial assistance.”