In the latest blow to embattled Harvard University, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Thursday denounced the school for failing Jewish students and seemingly violating the school’s Title VI obligations under the Civil Rights Act. 

“Harvard failed, end of story. These administrators failed their Jewish students and faculty, they failed to make it clear that antisemitism will not be tolerated, and in this case, Harvard may have failed to fulfill its legal responsibilities to protect students from a hostile environment,” the committee’s chairwoman, Virginia Foxx, said in a statement, citing new documents that had been provided to the committee in its investigation into campus antisemitism. 

“The only thing administrators accomplished is appeasing radical students who have almost certainly returned to campus emboldened and ready to repeat the spring semester’s chaos. Harvard must change course immediately,” she added.

As one of multiple elite universities that caught the attention of the congressional committee following the October 7 massacre and the rampant antisemitism in higher education that followed it, Harvard has been under investigation by the committee for months.

Earlier this year, when releasing an investigative report on Harvard’s actions towards protecting Jewish students, Ms. Foxx said that the efforts of the “dysfunctional” administration had been “all for show.”

Now, the congressional committee says it has further evidence that Harvard failed to protect Jewish students and failed to discipline agitators who participated in the Harvard encampment, occupied buildings, and disrupted classes — finding that the university’s leadership did not uphold its own commitment that “violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated.”

“As the new semester begins, not one of the 68 Harvard students referred for discipline for conduct related to the encampment is suspended, and the vast majority are in good standing,” an executive summary of the newly obtained documents reads. “Moreover, between October 7 and the April 24 formation of the encampment, Harvard failed to impose any formal discipline on any students.”

Of those 68 students, 52 are in “good standing,” while 15 are not in good standing and one is on leave, the documents indicate.

Then-Interim president of Harvard University, Alan Garber, acknowledged that the anti-Israel encampment disrupted Harvard’s normal functioning, affected students’ ability to sleep and study, created “safety concerns,” and presented a “significant risk” to the university’s educational environment, the summary notes. 

“These facts make it clear that the encampment violated Harvard’s policies, and the university’s lack of adequate response to the encampment likely placed the University in violation of its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” the committee said.

A Title VI violation is likely to be found when an institution has a hostile environment based on “race, color, or national origin,” and when a school fails to take “prompt and effective steps” to eliminate the hostile environment and prevent it “from recurring,” the committee notes, citing the Department of Education. 

The documents indicate that many students were granted downgraded sanctions, allowing them to be on probation for much shorter periods of time than originally voted on by leadership. There were also “no consequences” for students who occupied University Hall in November 2023, as well as for students who “interrupted classes with bullhorns and antisemitic chants,” the committee said. 

“By failing to hold students responsible for clear violations of university policy, including repeat offenders, Harvard has invited further ones thereby violating its Title VI obligation to protect its Jewish students,” it concludes. 

Harvard University’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.