Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in antisemitism probes targeting schools
The complaint says federal officials pressed schools to settle before investigations were complete and suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.
- Former Justice Department attorney Haley Van Erem filed a whistleblower disclosure alleging that a federal task force pushed for financial settlements with Ivy League universities despite rushed, incomplete, or unproven investigations.
- The complaint asserts that the task force's outcomes were predetermined to strong-arm institutions like Brown, Harvard, and Columbia into cutting deals and accepting funding freezes under the pretext of combating antisemitism.
- According to the filing, investigative teams failed to find evidence supporting Title VI civil rights violations at Brown, while probes at Columbia relied on unsupported allegations from media stories and litigation filings.
- House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin publicized the claims and accused the administration of conducting a politically motivated operation to curtail academic freedom and strip research grants from universities.
152 Articles
152 Articles
How Universities Should Respond To Revelations That The Trump Administration’s Antisemitism Charges Were a Sham
Austin Sarat ScheerPost At the start of his second term, President Trump opened fire on some of America’s most prestigious universities. His administration cut off or threatened to cut off millions of dollars in federal funding unless they agreed to unprecedented levels of federal oversight of their operations. To accomplish this purpose, the administration highlighted the…
DOJ Whistleblower Confirms “Antisemitism” Probes Against Universities Were Sham Investigations
Haley Van Erem, a former career attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, has filed a complaint claiming the Trump administration task force charged with investigating antisemitism pushed universities into massive settlements despite turning up little to no evidence of anti-Jewish discrimination on campus. Van Erem said in her complaint that the government’s probes into schools like Harvard, Brown and Columbia were “an unlawful process designed to achieve predetermined
Whistleblower Says Federal University Antisemitism Probes Lacked Evidence
WASHINGTON — A former Justice Department civil-rights attorney says federal investigations into alleged antisemitism at several prominent universities were rushed, politically driven and, in some cases, unsupported by sufficient facts or law. Haley Van Erem made the allegations in a whistleblower disclosure filed with inspectors general at the Justice and Health and Human Services departments and with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Her atto…
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