The U.S. Department of Justice has increased its focus on higher education reform since the onset of 2025. Its investigations focus on universities’ alleged antisemitism, unfair admissions policies favoring minority students, diversity, equity and inclusion programming in violation of federal civil-rights law and harmful foreign influence.
The Justice Department has expressed its intentions in the form of lawsuits, federal grants, contingencies on federal funding and contracts to exert its influence.
The University has felt this increased federal scrutiny in the last couple of years. Following Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), the University removed race from its admissions considerations in accordance with the law, and it has since removed its supplemental question asking applicants to expand on an aspect of their background.
Further, and more relevant this month considering the one year anniversary of former University President Jim Ryan’s resignation announcement, the Justice Department sent a series of seven letters to University officials in the months preceding Ryan’s resignation. The letters spell out the federal agency’s dissatisfaction with the University’s admissions policies and Ryan’s leadership.
The letters requested admissions information from the University to ensure compliance with Students for Fair Admissions, claimed Ryan’s office had failed to implement the Board of Visitors’ March 7, 2025 directive to dissolve the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and alleged antisemitic discrimination against students and employees and violations of Title VI.
The three aforementioned letters were dated May 22, June 16 and June 17 of 2025, and they said that if the University did not work to ensure compliance of Title VI and federal civil rights law, the Justice Department could suspend federal financial assistance and pursue civil action. The final letter, dated 10 days before Ryan announced his resignation, demanded “immediate corrective action.” In his email announcing his resignation, Ryan explained that continuing in his role would put students and funding for the University at risk.
During former interim University President Paul Mahoney’s time in office, the University entered into a settlement with the Justice Department in October, which effectively terminated the remaining five ongoing federal investigations lingering after Ryan’s resignation in exchange for the University’s observance of federal civil rights law and quarterly compliance reports to the Justice Department.
The University has submitted the first two of these reports detailing revised admissions practices and the removal of programs previously targeted at minority identity groups, and the agreement mandates it continue sending these reports through Dec. 31, 2028. The next compliance report is expected to come out this summer.
Also during Mahoney’s tenure, the University rejected the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, which offered a select group of “good actor” universities preferential federal funding treatment in exchange for capping undergraduate international enrollment, freezing tuition rates for five years, adopting “institutional neutrality” and addressing grade inflation, among other requests.
Six other schools rejected the terms, citing threats to academic freedom. Due to a lack of support, the Trump administration paused the original push, and administration officials announced in early 2026 that a revised compact is being drafted.
Although the University has felt the significant influence of the federal government this past year, the Justice Department’s interventions in higher education are much further reaching, spanning universities across the nation. Here is a look at its areas of reform focus within the higher education landscape and notable actions it has taken against universities to instill its desired changes.
Antisemitism
The Justice Department, in the past couple of years, has increased its claims that universities did not protect Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and staff in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians.
In May 2024, pro-Palestinian student protestors at the University organized an anti-war occupation on Grounds, including an encampment. The protestors called for the University to divest from companies that support and invest in Israel, disclose all investments, cease academic connections with Israeli universities and enable University members to voice Palestinian support without reprisal.
Days later, the University administration said students were violating University policy “intended to secure the safety, operations and rights of the entire University community.” Police arrived May 4, 2024 to disband the encampment, arresting and using pepper spray on some of the protestors. Several other universities nationwide saw uprisings of students and faculty similar to the University’s, and police also got involved in several of these instances, including at Columbia University.
The Justice Department was not involved in the Ryan administration’s decision to revise University policy regarding protest rules and the removal of exceptions for certain tents, and the Department did not order the University, local and state police to enforce the policy change. However, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights listed the University among 60 institutions under investigation or monitoring over alleged antisemitic discrimination March 10, 2025, and antisemitism was a topic broached in the Justice Department’s letters sent prior to Ryan’s resignation.
Outside of University-specific matters, the Justice Department led multiple federal agencies in creating the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism in February 2025. This task force announced 10 schools — the University not among them — that had experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023, and it aimed to evaluate whether remedial actions were warranted. The task force and Trump administration deemed it necessary to penalize institutions, including Harvard University and Columbia, by cutting federal grants and contracts.
In March 2025, Columbia faced a cancellation of $400 million worth of federal grants and contracts due to its alleged inaction in response to harassment of Jewish students. The university later reached a federal resolution July 2025 requiring Columbia to pay $200 million over three years to the federal government, plus $21 million to settle investigations.
Also in July 2025, the Justice Department found that the University of California, Los Angeles violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI by demonstrating indifference to the “hostile educational environment” for Jewish and Israeli students. In February, the Justice Department sued the University of California system over antisemitism at UCLA, focusing on Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff this time. Finally, in May, the Justice Department filed another lawsuit against the University of California alleging an antisemitic hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students.
Harvard was also sued in a Title VI lawsuit by the Justice Department March 20. The lawsuit alleges Harvard discriminated against Jewish and Israeli students, tolerated harassment of these students and failed to protect them from exclusion and misconduct. Last, the Justice Department accused George Washington University Aug. 12, 2025 of being indifferent to antisemitic discrimination.
Admissions
Nearly two years after Students for Fair Admissions, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate admissions policies at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA and the University of California, Irvine March 2025. The Justice Department accused these universities of using “DEI discrimination” in their admissions decisions.
Almost a year later, in February, the Justice Department sued Harvard, alleging the school withheld race-related admissions information from the federal government needed to determine whether the university was continuing to preferentially admit students based on race.
Aside from focusing on undergraduate admissions, the Justice Department targeted many of its admissions efforts at medical schools. In May, the Justice Department found that UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine had discriminatory admissions practices based on race, alleging the medical school admitted Black and Hispanic students with lower academic qualifications than white and Asian applicants.
In June, the Justice Department opened 15 investigations into medical schools nationwide over racially discriminatory admissions practices, although not all schools were named in the Department’s announcement of its investigations. Also in June, the Justice Department found the University of California, Davis School of Medicine discriminated in its admissions decisions. The Justice Department alleged the school unfairly used its “Davis Scale,” which incorporated socioeconomic and “disadvantage” variables to adjust the impacts of GPA and MCAT scores in admissions decisions. Last for the medical schools, the Justice Department alleged the Yale School of Medicine illegally factored race into its admissions decisions.
DEI policy
While many Justice Department actions in higher education have touched on DEI-related issues, some have focused on DEI more explicitly. For one, it issued the memo “Ending Illegal DEI and DEIA Discrimination and Preferences” in February 2025, which states that higher education institutions, among other entities, receiving federal funds “may not treat some students worse” due to their race. The memo says the Justice Department will work with the Department of Education to issue directions and its Civil Rights Division to pursue actions to comply with Students for Fair Admissions.
The Justice Department proceeded to release broader guidance for higher education recipients of federal funding in July 2025 — “Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination.” The guidance warns recipients about the legal risks of initiatives featuring DEI practices, and it offers up some examples of “unlawful practices” and “recommendations on best practices” to avoid potential violations and funding consequences.
Just prior to this guidance, the Justice Department had called out a state-run Illinois minority-only scholarship program in April 2025. The program had been suspended after the Justice Department threatened to sue the state, and universities including Northwestern University and the University of Chicago told the Justice Department they had ended their participation in the program.
Most recently in June, the City University of New York system is under the Justice Department’s scrutiny for its Black Male Initiative — a program encompassing recruitment, admissions, student aid and professional development — which the Department claims provides unfair educational benefits to minorities.
Foreign influence
The Justice Department has also spearheaded efforts to police funding from foreign countries, enforce research security and control international students and their visas. Federal officials have argued that foreign governments, especially China, may use university partnerships, funding, student visas and research collaborations to gain access to sensitive research, data or intellectual property.
Cases brought against universities often use the False Claims Act — the Justice Department can argue through this act that a university or researcher got federal research money but failed to comply with disclosure rules. Disclosure rules require universities and researchers to divulge foreign support, affiliations and conflicts when applying for or spending federal money. For example, Stanford paid $1.9 million in 2023 to resolve disclosure issues for foreign support received by faculty members.
This issue of foreign influence has been met with federal regulatory responses. In April 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order emphasizing the requirement of higher education institutions to report significant sources of foreign funding. He encouraged the Justice Department and Secretary of Education to hold institutions accountable.
Members of the scientific community have raised concerns about the Justice Department’s cases using the FCA that could stifle international research and collaboration. After pushback from academics, the SAFE Research Act was removed from the Department of Defense’s budget for FY26. The act would have hindered research agencies from seeking federal funding from Chinese universities or making research agreements with these foreign institutions.
The University of Michigan has also been a central figure in lawsuits over foreign federal research money security. In November 2025, the Justice Department charged three Chinese scholars at Michigan with conspiracy to smuggle biological chemicals into the country. The Department of Education has also scrutinized Michigan — it opened a foreign funding investigation in July 2025, arguing the university failed to provide complete disclosure reports.
On the subject of international student visas, some international students at higher education institutions — including the University — have experienced halts or delays in their visa application processes while federal officials implement new protocols. Other international students have expressed worry about returning home.
Research funding
Research funding is a pressure point used often by the federal government — the funds support labs, graduate students, post-doctoral students, medical research, equipment and more. Even when issues arise around campus culture and antisemitism, scientists and research often face the brunt of the punishments with funding cuts.
The Justice Department has relied not only on lawsuits to enact higher education reform, but also on using federal grants, eligibility and funding as leverage. Columbia is an example of this method — the federal government said its cancellation of $400 million in federal grants should serve as a notice to other universities, and more cancellations will follow.
In exchange for restored funding, Columbia agreed to a large set of reforms requested by the Justice Department — commitments related to nondiscrimination, antisemitism, admissions data and campus discipline. Similarly, Brown University reached an agreement with the federal government in July 2025 after the federal government expressed intentions to block over $500 million in its campaign to fight antisemitism on college campuses. The agreement reinstated research grant payments and Brown’s ability to compete for new funding, in exchange for compliance reporting and other commitments.
Harvard resisted this model of pausing funding — the school challenged the federal government’s freeze of over $2 billion in research funding in April 2025, and the judge ruled in Harvard’s favor September 2025, finding the cuts unlawful while recognizing the university could have done more to address antisemitism.
University settlements
Many universities including U.Va., Cornell University, Northwestern, Brown and Columbia reached agreements with the federal government in 2025. Many of the agreements included monetary payments to the federal government or other groups as part of the deal. Columbia’s agreement included over $200 million in payments, Brown agreed to pay $50 million over 10 years to state workforce development organizations and Cornell agreed to pay $30 million to the U.S. government. These payments restored access to federal funding. Both the University of Pennsylvania and U.Va. made agreements in which no payment was reported.
The agreements often mandated the universities submit compliance reports — the University, for one, must submit quarterly reports to the Justice Department, documenting “good faith” efforts to comply with federal civil rights law. Northwestern must report quarterly to the Assistant Attorney General on compliance, Cornell agreed to certify compliance on a regular basis and provide undergraduate admissions data quarterly, Columbia’s agreement created outside monitoring mechanisms and Brown’s agreement mandated data submissions.
Most recently, the Justice Department accused Yale’s medical school of giving preferential treatment to Black and Hispanic applicants in May, and the New York Times reported Yale is currently pursuing negotiations towards a settlement.
Grace Little is a news editor for the 137th term. She is a third-year student from Dallas, Texas majoring in Neuroscience and the Interdisciplinary Major in Public Policy, Politics and Media Studies. She enjoys writing about the shifting landscape of higher education.
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