Whistleblower: Trump Administration Pressured DOJ/HHS Staff To Find Antisemitism at Ivies

Antisemitism is monstrously heinous; it led to the gravest crime of the 20th century. Which is why a well-grounded allegation of antisemitism is a reputational dagger. But when the accusation is pretextual, it harms the innocent and casts a shadow over all allegations of antisemitism.

Recall that following the outbreak of the Gaza war and nationwide campus protests, the Trump administration launched a high-profile crackdown, stripping hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants from Harvard, Columbia, and Brown under the banner of protecting Jewish students.

But Haley Van Erem, a former DOJ attorney, recently filed a whistleblower complaint disclosing that the administration pressured DOJ and HHS staff to pursue antisemitism investigations that lacked factual bases and singled out Muslim faculty members regardless of whether they were allegedly implicated.

Van Erem’s attorneys at the Government Accountability Project (GAP) wrote Congress that the administration pressured staff to make findings that were “predetermined, without regard to the evidence” and intended to coerce the universities into large monetary settlements. And that pressure worked: Columbia and Brown caved, settling lawsuits for $270 million.  

Harvard, backed by a more formidable endowment, resisted and, last week, prevailed. Federal Judge Richard Stearns dismissed the government's claims, ruling the alleged incidents were far too isolated and episodic to constitute a systemic civil rights violation, echoing fellow federal Judge Allison Burroughs, who scolded the administration for using “antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault” on higher education.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, wrote the chief of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, blasting the investigation as a “a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature." Ouch.

Thanks to Haley Van Erem, GAP, and Rep. Raskin for standing up to the abuse of power.