Health and Human Services Dept. To Investigate Harvard Medical School Over Commencement Protests

The United States Department of Health and Human Services launched a Title VI antidiscrimination investigation into Harvard on Tuesday over pro-Palestine messaging worn by Harvard Medical School students at graduation ceremonies — the latest effort by the Trump administration to crack down on protesters.

In a letter notifying Harvard of the investigation, HHS Associate Deputy Director Daniel Shieh wrote that the department initiated the proceedings because of a Jan. 27 New York Post article that showed students wearing keffiyehs and stoles displaying the Palestinian flag.

HHS will investigate whether Harvard’s response to Commencement protests failed to protect Jewish students. A press release announcing the investigation — which also targets medical schools at Columbia University, Brown University, and Johns Hopkins University — described the imagery displayed by students as “offensive” and antisemitic.

HMS will have to provide “books, records, accounts, and other sources of information” that may be pertinent to HHS’s probe on antisemitism at Harvard’s commencement in May, according to Shieh's letter, which was obtained by The Crimson. The letter also asked Harvard for a list of Medical School employees who witnessed the May 2024 protests.

HMS spokesperson Laura Decoste wrote in a statement to The Crimson that Harvard administrators are “reviewing the request from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights and will work to address their questions regarding the 2024 Commencement ceremony.”

“Harvard Medical School condemns antisemitism and remains committed to combatting all forms of discrimination and harassment,” Decoste wrote.

The New York Post article that sparked the investigation was based on a study by medicine professors Stephen Roth and Hedy S. Wald, published in January, which reviewed footage from the commencement ceremonies of 25 American medical schools. The study classified common pro-Palestine messaging — including keffiyehs and calls for divestment from Israel — as antisemitic.

The HHS investigation will examine whether the four medical schools “acted with deliberate indifference regarding events that may have impacted Jewish students’ rights to access educational opportunities and benefits,” wrote Anthony Archeval, the Acting Director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, in a Tuesday press release.

In the press release, Archeval noted that the schools’ receipt of federal funding requires them to comply with federal antidiscrimination law. Harvard was given $686 million in federal funding last year, a significant fraction of which was directed toward medical research.

The Medical School has been at the center of controversies over both complaints of antisemitism and of the suppression of pro-Palestine speech. In April, students at HMS and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine alleged administrative censorship after pro-Palestine imagery was cut from a student-produced music video celebrating new admits.

In May, dozens of HMS graduates staged a silent protest during the school’s Class Day ceremony, donning keffiyehs and graduation caps with statements in support of Palestine.

And, just last month, HMS canceled a planned lecture and panel with Gazan patients in response to complaints that the lecture would be one-sided because students would not also hear from Israelis affected by the war.

The HHS’s investigation is one of several measures President Donald Trump instructed federal agencies to undertake as part of his executive order last week that targeted pro-Palestine protests on campus. On Monday, the Department of Justice created its own task force to investigate complaints of antisemitism at U.S. colleges and universities.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

—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.