Harvard University has undertaken a major restructuring of its anti-discrimination bureaucracy, scrapping references to DEI and consolidating its departments as pressure builds to make a deal with the Trump administration.
The university announced Monday that it has combined its Office for Gender Equity and Office for Community Conduct into the new Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights, and Responsibilities, which will be responsible for handling both Title IV and Title IX enforcement.
“We recognized that our community was confused by different offices handling concerns that touched on issues of discrimination,” said Nicole Merhill, the new office’s director and Title IX coordinator, in the university-run Harvard Gazette.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bans sex discrimination in education, while Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin, which includes Jewish ancestry.
In addition, she said the office has filled the new position of Title VI coordinator and plans to hire a deputy Title VI coordinator and case manager who will “consult on all complaints of discrimination, including all complaints of antisemitism.”
The reorganization comes as the latest example of Harvard taking action in line with the Trump administration’s list of demands on combating campus extremism, even as the university officially refuses to cooperate with the crackdown in the name of academic freedom.
Harvard President Alan Garber rejected the administration’s proposed April 11 agreement in principle, which includes shuttering all DEI initiatives, insisting the university would not “surrender its independence” despite the threat to its federal funding.
Harvard then filed a First Amendment lawsuit to regain nearly $3 billion in frozen federal research funds and grants.
A week later, however, Harvard announced that its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging would be renamed “Community and Campus Life.” Harvard Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Sherri Ann Charleston is now head of the “Chief Community and Campus Life Office,” according to Harvard Magazine.
The decision to hire a Title VI coordinator and deputy also dovetails with the Trump administration’s concerns.
In June, the Department of Health and Human Services found that Harvard acted with “deliberate indifference” toward harassment of Jewish students, in violation of Title VI.
The April 11 demand letter called for Harvard to audit and reform programs with “egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.”
Whether Harvard’s name-changing and department-shuffling actually reduces discrimination remains to be seen, but Cornell Law School Professor William Jacobson was skeptical.
“Harvard and Cornell appear to be in a competition as to the most ludicrous rebranding of DEI bureaucracies,” Mr. Jacobson, who runs the conservative Legal Insurrection blog, told The Washington Times.
“Harvard has reorganized under the awkwardly titled Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities,” he said. “It’s all just a word game to wait out the Trump administration and rope-a-dope attempts to force change. It also illustrates how recalcitrant higher education will be to reform.”
He said that the administration “will only achieve its objectives if it has clearly defined benchmarks and if it insists on the complete elimination of all bureaucracies and programming that were part of DEI before rebranding.”
Ms. Merhill said the university’s “newest staff member has extensive experience addressing concerns of Title VI and Title IX discrimination at the federal level.”
That includes “investigating and resolving concerns of sexual harassment, racial harassment, and discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of harm.”
Mr. Garber denied reports that Harvard is considering a $500 million settlement with the Trump administration, telling faculty members that such a resolution is “not imminent,” the Harvard Crimson reported last weekend.
Columbia University reached a $221 million settlement with the administration last month that resolves antisemitism complaints and restores the Ivy League institution’s federal funding, while Brown University settled for $50 million.
The Trump administration isn’t alone in calling for Harvard to grapple with rising antisemitism that gripped the campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, which prompted Israel to declare war.
In January, Harvard settled a Title VI lawsuit filed by the Brandeis Center on behalf of Jewish students that included incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in evaluating antisemitism complaints.
Harvard Vice President Peggy Newell said the university has also rolled out an eLearning module, describing it as a one-hour training that will incorporate “non-discrimination and harassment, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, sexual harassment, and other sexual misconduct.”
The module will include examples of antisemitism provided under the IHRA, according to the Harvard Crimson.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.