U.S. Department of Education launches investigation into Haverford College over antisemitism complaints

The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into Haverford College over its handling of antisemitism complaints, the department announced Wednesday.

The investigation follows “credible reports that Haverford has failed to respond as required by law to multiple incidents of discrimination and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students on its campus,” the department said.

It is one of a number of investigations about antisemitism the department’s Office for Civil Rights has initiated since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and subsequent unrest on U.S. college campuses. A number of schools, including Drexel and Temple Universities, have since entered into resolution agreements with the department.

“We have received a copy of the OCR complaint and are reviewing,” a college spokesperson said Wednesday.

» READ MORE: Congressional committee demands answers from Haverford College on its handling of antisemitism complaints

Haverford president Wendy Raymond earlier this year testified before a congressional committee investigating the handling of antisemitism complaints on college campuses. She took the worst of the grilling among the presidents who testified, largely because she was reluctant to answer questions about discipline for alleged antisemitism, especially in specific cases. Raymond, a molecular biologist who has led the college for six years, testified that the college does not release data on student suspensions and expulsions.

In June, the committee demanded answers about faculty and student discipline. In a letter to the college, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) criticized Raymond’s testimony as “very disappointing,” faulting her for a “lack of transparency.” The committee gave the college until July 10 to respond. Haverford responded to the letter, the spokesperson said, but declined to provide a copy to The Inquirer.

“The Trump administration will not allow Jewish life to be pushed into the shadows because college leaders are too craven to respond appropriately to unlawful antisemitic incidents on campus,” said Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights. “The Office for Civil Rights will investigate this matter thoroughly and ensure all students are treated equally under law.”

Leaders of the other two schools at the May hearing with Raymond — DePaul University and California Polytechnic State University — provided statistics on groups and students who were suspended or otherwise disciplined for antisemitic conduct since Oct. 7, 2023.

» READ MORE: Haverford president gets the worst of the grilling at congressional hearing on antisemitism

At the hearing, some of the questions Raymond faced focused on discipline in hypothetical cases that she said had not occurred on Haverford’s campus — such as someone calling for the genocide of Jewish people — and in other cases that Raymond said were not accurate accounts.

During the hearing, at least two lawmakers threatened Haverford’s federal funding. As a small liberal arts college, Haverford is not as dependent on federal funding as a large research university like the University of Pennsylvania. In the last year, Haverford received $1.95 million in federal research funding and $58,486 in federal sponsored awards for instruction, the college spokesperson said.

The Department of Governmental Efficiency says it has cut $204,000 in unspent federal funding from Haverford this year.

In her opening remarks at the hearing, Raymond apologized to Jewish community members “who felt as if the college was not there for you” and took responsibility for some mistakes.

“This is an example of a difficult period of learning where I did not get it right,” Raymond said when asked about an email sent to the Haverford community after Hamas’ attack.

Raymond noted the college had made a plethora of changes to address concerns about antisemitism, including changes in the antibias policy and rules around protesting, steps to revise the honor code, and increases in campus safety at events.

In January, a lawsuit filed by students alleging antisemitism at the college was dismissed without prejudice by a federal court judge.

Calling the complaint “sprawling and disorganized,” Judge Gerald Austin McHugh of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said he could not even review the relevant facts of the case.

The complaint, he wrote, “appears to detail every frustration and disagreement of Jewish students and faculty that has occurred at Haverford over the last year” and “reads more as an opinion editorial than it does a legal complaint.”

The complaint was filed last year by the Deborah Project, a public interest think tank that defends the rights of Jewish people facing discrimination in the education system. It was filed on behalf of a group of Jewish students that called themselves Jews at Haverford.

The group filed an amended complaint, but the judge in June dismissed plaintiffs’ claims that the college violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, this time with prejudice, meaning plaintiffs cannot refile.

But the judge allowed a portion of the complaint involving breach of contract that would result in nominal damages to proceed to discovery, saying that “plaintiffs plausibly allege that the Bias Policy contains clear contractual promises that Haverford has breached.”

“We are looking forward to the leadership of Haverford College making the essential changes to ensure that Jews who believe that Israel is and should remain the homeland of the Jewish people can live and study at Haverford without being attacked for their beliefs,” said Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the Deborah Project’s legal director, in response to the Education Department’s investigation.