Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in
antisemitism probes targeting schools
[August 19, 2026]
By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Trump administration task force created to combat
antisemitism pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite
government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed
to establish legal violations by the schools, a former Justice
Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower disclosure obtained by The
Associated Press.
The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation's
most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the
schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the
investigations were "predetermined, without regard to the evidence" in a
“politically mandated effort” to extract money from schools through
settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out
antisemitism, the complaint alleges.
The work of the multi-agency task force, launched by the Justice
Department under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in February 2025, was
“marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined
outcomes without factual or legal support” and disregard for the law and
Constitution, lawyers for the former government attorney wrote in
seeking watchdog investigations into their client's complaints.
The complaint taps into a broader public discussion about the
administration's efforts to confront allegations of antisemitism at
colleges, a problem that received renewed attention during campus
protests over Israel's war in Gaza that some Jewish students said made
them feel unsafe. President Donald Trump returned to the White House
with a goal of rooting out antisemitism that he said had gone unchecked
during the Biden administration, but critics have called his
government's response heavy-handed and said it infringed on free speech
rights and coerced concessions from public institutions.
A key House Democrat is publicizing the whistleblower's allegations
Lawyers for the former Justice Department attorney, identified as Haley
Van Erem, filed the disclosure with the inspectors general at the
departments of Justice and Health and Human Services, as well as with
the Office of Special Counsel.
Van Erem spent nearly a decade working in the Justice Department's Civil
Rights Division before being involuntarily assigned to HHS to work on
the Title VI investigations into the universities, the complaint says.
The health department assignees were initially told to scrutinize
allegations of antisemitism at medical school commencement ceremonies —
the lawyers were advised of a New York Post story describing antisemitic
conduct at graduation events, the complaint says — but the inquiries
were later expanded to focus on the entire schools in the cases of
Columbia and Brown, according to Van Erem's account.
Van Erem left the Justice Department in May 2025 because she was
"unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically
motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law," says
the complaint, which also says “officials targeted some Middle East
Studies faculty for the content of their work and other professors for
their Muslim faith.”
Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the department
“stands behind the integrity” of its investigations. A spokesperson for
the Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to
requests seeking comment Tuesday.
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Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee, wrote separately to Harmeet Dhillon, who as the assistant
attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division has been a public face of the department's efforts to
counter antisemitism. In his letter, he said antisemitism at
colleges and medical schools is a real problem that needs to be
investigated.
“But,” he told Dhillon, “your 'investigation’ into antisemitism was
fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in
nature.”
Raskin wrote that “the whole project was designed to harass
professors and administrators at major universities, to curtail
their freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to strip targeted
institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that they
had already been awarded on the merits of their applications.”
Scrutiny over the handling of investigations into elite schools
The whistleblower complaint deals chiefly with investigations into
three Ivy League universities: Brown, Harvard and Columbia.
It alleges that in the case of Brown, the investigative team did not
find evidence to support a violation of Title VI, the section of the
Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination on the basis of race,
color or national origin in programs that receive federal funding,
but that “leadership refused to permit a notice of no violation and
instead sought some form of settlement or resolution despite
acknowledging the absence of a legal basis for doing so.”
Investigators did find evidence of discrimination at Columbia, the
complaint says, but the investigation was done on an accelerated
timetable before “adequate factual development and legal review were
completed” and relied on allegations that “were unsupported, based
on news reports or litigation filings, or that implicated protected
First Amendment activity."
Columbia University agreed to pay the government $200 million as
part of an agreement restoring access to federal funding. Brown
University separately agreed to pay $50 million to Rhode Island
workforce development organizations to end the three federal
investigations involving allegations of antisemitism and racial bias
in admissions, with no findings of wrongdoing.
In the investigation into Harvard, Trump administration officials
discussed “extraordinary funding freezes and sweeping proposed
settlement terms” before an investigation had been completed that
could establish Title VI violations. Sean Keveney, then-HHS acting
general counsel, said he believed Harvard would settle because they
were “over a barrel,” according to the complaint.
A federal judge last year ordered the Trump administration to
reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in research funding for
the university, saying the government “used antisemitism as a
smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this
country’s premier universities.” And a different judge last week
dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard
University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students.
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