Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said on Tuesday that the Trump administration will continue its legal battles against Harvard University and UCLA, accusing both institutions of continuing to neglect the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty.

Dhillon made the comments while appearing at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum in Washington, where she  condemned what she described as “egregious examples of antisemitism that have transpired here at home on American soil” since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel as “devastating and antithetical to our values as a nation.”

The assistant attorney general highlighted the department’s most recent lawsuit against Harvard in March, saying that the Ivy League university had been “tolerating race and national origin discrimination against both Jewish and Israeli students.”

“After Oct. 7, antisemitic mobs at Harvard and other campuses harassed and intimidated these students all across the campus. Harvard failed to take meaningful action and it failed to enforce its own rules in an equal manner,” Dhillon said. “Its own presidential task force documented the exclusion of Israeli and Zionist students from social spaces and extracurricular activities, but these findings were ignored. Harvard’s actions are inexcusable, and it cannot continue to take taxpayer dollars while turning a blind eye to abuse against Jewish and Israeli students.”

Turning to UCLA, Dhillon noted that the Justice Department had filed suit against the school last week “for its deliberate indifference to race and national origin discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

She recounted visiting the Los Angeles campus in recent weeks, noting that “it almost brought tears to my eyes” to hear a recent UCLA School of Law graduate share how a student held up a large sign behind his head with an inverted red triangle, a symbol used by Hamas terrorists to mark Israeli targets.

“This is outrageous behavior in America that this administration will not tolerate,” she said of the incident, and vowed that the Justice Department would continue pursuing its litigation. 

UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism action group released a 42-page set of recommendations last month urging the university to intensify its crackdown on anti-Jewish harassment, which Chancellor Julio Frank said “makes clear that antisemitism and all other forms discrimination and bigotry have no place at UCLA.

“The Civil Rights Division will fight antisemitism in our American universities and elsewhere, wherever we will find it,” Dhillon told the crowd. “The fight for the Jewish community’s right to learn, worship or live freely is not a fight that I or the Civil Rights Division take lightly. It’s a fight that I’ve personally committed to, because no person in this country should ever have to live in fear because of his beliefs or where he came from. With every institution and individual we hold accountable, our Civil Rights Division fights tirelessly to protect America’s Jewish community.”