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Whistleblower alleges pressure
A whistleblower account filed by Haley Van Erem alleges that Trump administration officials “predetermined” outcomes in antisemitism investigations into Harvard and other universities and pursued sweeping penalties before investigators had established civil rights violations.
“accused Trump administration officials of predetermining the outcomes of antisemitism investigations”
The disclosure says the proposal under consideration with Harvard in April 2025 would have required Harvard to invest in programs in Israel and place endowment money in trusts that the government could seize, and it also describes new memorandums of understanding with police.
The complaint also alleges that the DOJ-created interagency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism launched in spring 2025 was politically motivated and out of step with historical practice, including investigations into Harvard, Brown, and Columbia that were “predetermined” and designed to advance “political priorities.”
In a Tuesday statement, a DOJ spokesperson said the department “stands behind the integrity of these investigations” and said Van Erem was not assigned to work on university probes, while Van Erem’s filing recounts an encounter with then-HHS Acting General Counsel Sean R. Keveney.
The dispute comes as the sources describe a federal judge throwing out the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Harvard over alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students.
Raskin calls it fake
The Associated Press report says lawyers for Van Erem alleged the task force pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite investigations that were rushed and incomplete or failed to establish legal violations, and it describes outcomes as “predetermined, without regard to the evidence.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote that “your ‘investigation’ into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature,” in a letter to Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights.
The Hill reported that the whistleblower complaint accuses DOJ of speeding investigations and demanding a settlement from Brown University even after finding “evidence did not support a Title VI violation,” and it says investigators interviewed Muslim university staff “not ‘to get information’” but to “elicit” remarks.
Al Jazeera reported that a DOJ spokesperson told it Van Erem “did not work on university investigations” during her tenure, while the disclosure alleges the task force targeted professors based on religion and ethnicity.
The complaint centers on investigations into Brown, Harvard, and Columbia, and the sources describe different outcomes including settlements and funding freezes tied to the allegations.
Settlements and funding at stake
The sources say Columbia agreed to pay the government $200 million as part of an agreement restoring access to federal funding, while Brown agreed to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations to end the three federal investigations.
“Columbia University agreed to pay the government $200 million”
The Forward reported that the administration used withholding funds as enforcement, and it quotes the report saying “The funding suspensions were meant to be coercive irrespective of investigative findings.”
The Harvard Crimson says the disclosure describes how the government’s plan to force elite universities into reform fell apart after Harvard publicly aired its grievances and sued to reclaim federal research grants, and it says the April 11 letter represented a less expansive version of interventions administration officials were floating privately.
CBS News reported that a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Massachusetts, found instances of alleged discrimination cited by the government were “too isolated and episodic” to support Title VI violations, while Brown and Columbia settled to resolve similar Title VI allegations.
Al Jazeera added that a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reverse cuts of more than $2.6bn in research funding for Harvard, saying the government “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”
