Justice Department Establishes Task Force To Investigate Antisemitism Complaints on College Campuses

The United States Department of Justice announced the formation of a multi-agency task force to investigate allegations of antisemitism at U.S. universities on Monday, a step that promises to keep Harvard under a federal microscope.

The task force is one of several measures President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to implement as part of his executive order last week which urged a crackdown on antisemitism complaints on college campuses.

Per a press release, the task force will be led by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, but will also include representatives from the the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other unspecified agencies.

The task force is the Trump administration’s latest salvo against Harvard, which has spent more than a year battling federal inquiries into antisemitism allegations — including a congressional investigation that closed in December and two lawsuits the University settled last month.

Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Leo J. Terrell, who will lead the task force, wrote that the group would be the “first step in giving life to President Trump’s renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools.”

“The Task Force’s first priority will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” he wrote in the press release.

Terrell, a civil rights lawyer and commentator on Fox News, was a vocal critic of Harvard’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and has accused the University of deliberately allowing antisemitism to fester on campus.

Shortly after former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s December 2023 testimony before Congress, he called on Gay to resign, saying that keeping her at Harvard’s top post would be “racist.”

“Why is she being kept? This is DEI at its worst,” Terrell said.

In Oct. 2024, Terrell warned in a post on X that Harvard would lose “much more” money if Trump was inaugurated. And just days before Trump was sworn into office, he doubled down on his threat, saying that he would “start work next week” on the issue.

Harvard Divinity School graduate Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum — the lead plaintiff in an antisemitism lawsuit against the University — celebrated the task force’s announcement on X.

“It took Trump less than 2 weeks to do what Biden refused to do for 2 years,” he wrote. “American Jewish students: help is on the way.”

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.