Harvard Moves To Reassign Civil Rights Suit to Judge Who Has Ruled in Its Favor

Harvard University, pushing back against the federal government’s civil rights lawsuit, is asking the court to reassign the case to Judge Allison Burroughs, who has ruled in the university’s favor in prior litigation, including in an affirmative action decision the Supreme Court later threw out.In a Thursday filing, the Ivy League school urged the court to assign the Title VI case to Judge Burroughs on the grounds that she oversaw Harvard’s funding lawsuit against the government, Harvard v. Department of Health and Human Services, a case the university argues rests on “the same core premise” as the suit at hand. Judge Burroughs ruled in that case that the administration had acted unlawfully when it froze Harvard’s federal funding over allegations of antisemitism.Harvard further contends that the Justice Department was wrong to associate the new complaint with two private antisemitism lawsuits — both overseen by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns — while omitting any mention of the prior funding litigation. The university argues in its filing that the administration “seeks a do-over” with the latest lawsuit.The Justice Department filed the suit earlier this month, charging that Harvard is violating the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students by failing to protect them from a “hostile educational environment” that took hold on campus following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.The case is currently assigned to Judge Stearns. If the court sides with Harvard, it would be transferred to Judge Burroughs, an Obama administration appointee who has consistently ruled against the Trump administration in its legal battles with the university.Judge Burroughs ruled last September that the administration’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in Harvard’s research grants amounted to unlawful retaliation disguised as antisemitism enforcement, and ordered the government to restore the funding. She also dealt the administration a setback last June, granting Harvard a preliminary injunction barring the government from revoking the university’s ability to enroll international students while that case proceeded in court.Her rulings have drawn the ire of Mr. Trump, who has vented his frustrations in a series of Truth Social posts. In July, the president called her a “total disaster” and “trump-hating” and accused her of systematically taking over Harvard’s various cases against the administration.Beyond her rulings against the administration, Ms. Burroughs notably upheld Harvard’s use of race-based admissions decisions in a lawsuit brought against the Ivy League school by Students for Fair Admissions in 2019. In her ruling, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court, Ms. Burroughs argued that while Harvard’s admissions practices were “not perfect,” they did not amount to discrimination against Asian American applicants. Judge Stearns, meanwhile, has presided over Harvard-related litigation brought by Jewish students and advocacy organizations alleging that the university failed to protect its Jewish community from antisemitic discrimination following the October 7 attacks.He rejected Harvard’s efforts to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former Divinity School student Shabbos Kestenbaum, as well as a class action filed by the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education. Both cases were eventually settled. Judge Stearns did toss a third suit brought by a Harvard Business School graduate, Yoav Segev, who alleged that he was assaulted during an anti-Israel campus protest. Judge Stearns determined that his claim did not establish “severe and pervasive racial harassment.”

Harvard Moves To Reassign Civil Rights Suit to Judge Who Has Ruled in Its Favor

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