It was hardly 24 hours after President Trump swore the presidential oath that Harvard University pledged to undertake its most significant effort yet to shield Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitic discrimination on campus. The agreement, which settled two lawsuits against the school, was hailed by the leading authority on civil rights in higher education, Kenneth Marcus, as a “watershed moment.” Call it the Trump effect.

The stipulation that makes the treaty so important is Harvard’s promise to adopt in its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policy the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism. The definition, which is favored by the Jewish community, embraces the connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It puts paid to the farce that denying the Jews the right to self-determination is not hostility to Jews.

“Harvard is acknowledging that a rule against Zionists is a rule against Jews,” Mr. Marcus told the Sun. In addition to adopting the IHRA’s template for antisemitism, Harvard explicitly lists examples of prohibited conduct. They include calling for the death of Zionists, excluding Zionists from open events, calling up tropes or conspiracies about Zionists, and demanding that Jewish students state positions on Israel for the purpose of harassing them. 

It’s shocking that such behavior needed to be clarified as violating the school’s non-discrimination policy. Yet it’s a development that will make it harder for anti-Israel protesters to harass Jewish students under the guise of “activism,” and it will put Harvard back on track to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars federally-funded institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, national origin, or religion.

Harvard’s compliance on that head will be kept in check over the next five years through the issuance of an annual report detailing the university’s handling of discrimination complaints, including the school’s chosen disciplinary outcomes. To top it off, in a major blow to anti-Israel activists calling for the school to boycott Israeli institutions, the school has agreed to establish an official partnership with a university in Israel.

The settlement puts an end to two lawsuits filed against the school over its mishandling of antisemitism after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The university tried to have those lawsuits dismissed on the claim that the “plaintiff’s dissatisfaction with the strategy and speed of Harvard’s essential work does not state a legally cognizable claim.” The judges, though, determined otherwise. Both motions ultimately failed. 

Which brings us back to Trump. It can hardly be chalked up as a coincidence that Harvard settled both lawsuits just one day after the 47th president was sworn into office. “No institution wants to have a case pending with a strong new president coming into office,” Mr. Marcus reckons. Mr. Trump, unlike the previous administration, has made clear his willingness to leverage federal funding to punish non-compliant universities. 

Harvard took Mr. Trump’s threats seriously and for weeks now has been gearing up for the turnover at Washington, D.C. The shift in approach can be traced to December, when Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, suggested, during a closed door meeting with faculty, that the university should embrace public criticism with  “empathy and humility.” He also relayed his intention to adopt a more cooperative attitude toward the new administration. 

Let’s hope that holds. Meantime attention will turn to Harvard’s Ivy League peers — some of whom are still in the midst of similar legal battles — to see if they will follow suit. Mr. Marcus, for one, predicts that Harvard’s move will inspire similar awakenings. “Harvard has an outsized influence on higher education more broadly,” he contends. “We now have a Harvard standard that other colleges will strive to meet.”