Since March, the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in federal funding to universities, halting $3.3 billion in grants and contracts to Harvard, $1 billion to Cornell, $790 million to Northwestern, $400 million to Columbia, and $210 million to Princeton. The main justification for this unprecedented funding freeze has been pro-Palestinian activism on these campuses, which President Donald Trump has labeled antisemitic. The cuts, which have already impacted the schools’ medical, scientific, and technological research, could expand further: On March 10th, the Department of Education (DOE) sent letters to 56 other universities warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they do not “protect Jewish students on campus.”
In halting federal funding, Trump administration officials have repeatedly claimed that they are following Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits institutions receiving federal support from creating or permitting a “hostile environment” for students on the basis of race, national origin, or other protected identity classes. But experts have said that the Trump administration is leapfrogging the legal process outlined by the Civil Rights Act, even as it points to Title VI as justification for their funding cuts. In the process, legal experts say, the administration is not only misusing Title VI—turning a statute intended to combat discrimination into a potent weapon with which to assault pro-Palestinian activism—it is also illegally undermining universities. This explainer delves into how the Trump administration is using Title VI law; the precedents Trump is building on in turning Title VI against critics of Israel; and how such weaponization of civil rights law relates to the administration’s attempts to undermine the rule of law.
What does Title VI say about funding cuts?
In 1964, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, legislators deliberately wrote provisions that made it difficult to terminate federal money over a violation of Title VI. “Cutoff of assistance is not the objective of Title VI,” Rhode Island Democratic Senator John Pastore said during debate on the bill in April 1964. “Fund cutoff is a last resort, to be used only if all else fails to achieve the real objective—the elimination of discrimination in the use and receipt of federal funds.” In order to reach the point of cutting funding under Title VI, a federal agency must first investigate an institution, make findings, and offer the entity the ability to voluntarily comply. If the institution does not comply, the dispute goes to an administrative court and to Congress, or the federal government can refer the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The laborious nature of Title VI proceedings, and the emphasis on voluntary compliance, means that the suspension of funding is a power that has rarely been used (the most prominent instances occurred in the context of racial discrimination in the 1960s). “The whole point is for this to be a curative process, not a punitive one, given what’s at stake for institutions and for students, who, if the doors are shut on them, may be left out in the cold,” said Katy Joseph, a former chief of staff in the Biden administration DOE’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the principal agency that enforces Title VI in educational settings. Title VI also mandates that any funding cuts be narrowly tailored to impact programs where non-compliance is found—a policy that sharply diverges from the Trump administration’s wholesale cuts to scientific and medical programs with no evidence that the particular programs are connected to alleged antisemitic discrimination.
How has the Trump administration used Title VI?
The administration has not wholly ignored the Congressionally-mandated process, and in some cases, it has launched Title VI investigations into schools, as the statute stipulates. After such an investigation into Columbia, the OCR offices of the DOE and the Health and Human Services’ Department declared on May 22nd that the university had violated Jewish students’ civil rights because of pro-Palestinian activism on campus, which the OCR said created a hostile environment for Jews.
On its face, the inquiry and the immediate release of findings in a public letter, along with the administration’s request that the university voluntarily comply with its Title VI obligations, appear in line with the normal process. But the administration had already unveiled a set of funding cuts before it undertook the inquiry process, canceling $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia on March 7th. The same thing unfolded at Harvard, where the administration sent an April 11th letter announcing that the Department of Justice would be investigating the school’s compliance with Title VI, and would work with the university to “secure compliance by informal voluntary means,” only to summarily cut billions in grants to the university three days later.
Experts say that the cuts have effectively made an end run around the Title VI process. “Funding cutoffs are by law a last step,” said Michael Dorf, a professor at Cornell Law School and an expert on Title VI. But “in its dealings with Columbia, Harvard, and other universities, the Trump administration has circumvented the requirements by cutting funds before without going through any of the mandated steps.” Joseph noted that in this context, the administration’s unusual decision to make its findings letter public was telling. “OCR doesn’t typically publish letters finding a violation, absent a signed agreement [because] the intent is to try and get the university to come to the table,” she said. “This is more of a ‘name and shame’ approach—another example of the offices taking liberty with the process in pursuit of a political end.”
In addition to raising process concerns, lawyers have also questioned the legal basis of the funding cuts. Radhika Sainath, a senior managing attorney at the civil rights group Palestine Legal, told Jewish Currents that the federal government is using Title VI without proving that there is in fact antisemitic discrimination taking place, pointing to a March 13th letter to Columbia in which the administration mentioned student encampments and the occupation of Hamilton Hall—actions that Sainath says are protected political speech and activism. “It’s really clear that what the Trump administration is framing as antisemitism is really speech critical of Israel’s genocide,” said Sainath. “That is not a violation under Title VI because speech critical of a country’s practices is not targeted harassment based on a protected class.” In pursuing this interpretation of antisemitism, Joseph said that the administration is using a different legal standard than in the past: While previous DOE investigations included a “subjective and objective” standard when evaluating civil rights complaints (meaning that the investigation would look at whether the conduct would be considered harassment by both the complainant and a reasonable outsider), the Trump DOE letter to Columbia makes no reference to such a standard, making it easier to find a university out of compliance with the law for alleged antisemitism.
What precedents is Trump building on in weaponizing Title VI?
Israel advocacy organizations have long used Title VI to target pro-Palestinian speech, and past presidential administrations from both parties have launched Title VI civil rights investigations into pro-Palestinian activism on campus that were alleged to create a hostile environment for Jews. The Obama DOE opened up investigations into alleged anti-Jewish bigotry at the behest of pro-Israel groups, for instance investigating multiple University of California schools for allegedly creating a hostile environment for Jews. As pro-Palestinian campus activism surged after the October 7th attacks and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza—which many experts have labeled a genocide—the Biden DOE, likewise responding to complaints filed by Israel advocacy groups, made particularly aggressive use of its investigatory powers, launching an unprecedented number of civil rights investigations into schools due to complaints of antisemitism. Civil liberties lawyers are critical of the investigations for pressing universities to scrutinize legally sanctioned speech and activism. “By not definitively shutting down the misuse of Title VI to suppress speech critical of Israel, the Biden administration really set the stage for everything the current administration is doing,” Sainath said.
While prior Title VI cases targeting pro-Palestine activism may have laid the groundwork for the present moment, no previous president has taken such cases as far as Trump. Indeed, Obama’s DOE repeatedly dismissed pro-Israel actors’ allegations, finding that examples cited by such groups were either protected forms of expression, or harassment based on political speech, which is not covered under Title VI. Unlike the Obama DOE, the Biden administration did not dismiss cases on the basis of protected expression. At the same time, it still continued to rely on the legally mandated voluntary agreements with universities it investigated, something Republicans often criticized as weak. “The toothless agreements shield schools from real accountability,” Rep. Tim Walberg, the Republican chair of the House’s Education and Workforce Committee said in reaction to the Biden administration’s January decision to settle with a number of institutions after antisemitism investigations. “The Trump administration should closely examine these agreements and explore options to impose real consequences on schools.”
Now, experts say Trump is doing just that by effectively pursuing an end run around Title VI. “We’re seeing the executive branch take unprecedented liberties, because they can flip the switch and turn the money off,” said Joseph. “The process is being abused in really coercive ways.” Dorf echoed the sentiment, saying bluntly that the Trump administration is “breaking the law.”
How does the misuse of Title VI fit into the administration’s broader agenda?
Legal experts say that the administration’s weaponization of Title VI is part of its attempt to not only crush pro-Palestinian speech but undermine universities altogether. Republicans see these institutions as powerful centers of organizing and scholarship that oppose their agenda; by threatening funding, Trump may be enlisting university administrators themselves into his project of silencing dissent. “[Threats to funding] give universities a huge incentive to suppress speech because they’re so afraid of having whatever remains of their federal funding terminated,” said Miriam Nunberg, a former staff attorney at OCR. “That’s a huge violation of the entire purpose of a university.” This pattern played out at Columbia when, after halting money to the school in mid-March, federal officials made funding restoration talks conditional on the school instituting a mask ban, hiring more law enforcement, and placing the Middle East studies department under the control of the government. In response, Columbia largely complied with the demands. And despite Columbia’s acquiescence, the Trump administration has not restored funding to the school; in fact, as recently as Wednesday, the administration declared that Columbia remains out of compliance with its Title VI obligations as part of an attempt to threaten the school’s accreditation.
In addition to weakening universities, advocates say that Trump’s Title VI moves should be understood as part of a wider attack on the rule of law writ large. This assault has included the continued detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a Salvadoran prison, despite the Supreme Court ruling that the administration should “facilitate” his return back to the US, and the likely illegal targeting of students for deportation for voicing pro-Palestinian views. “The Trump administration is acting completely outside the bounds of the law. They are just doing what they want to target people whose views they don’t like or that they don’t believe should be in the country, and completely ignoring the First Amendment and other due process protections,” said Sainath. “The targeting of universities is part and parcel of that.”
What groups are pushing back against Trump’s Title VI strategy and how likely are they to succeed?
On March 25th, the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit charging that the DOJ targeting of Columbia is illegal, based in part on its misuse of Title VI. In April, Harvard University also began litigation against the administration, arguing that the Trump administration’s application of Title VI to cut off money to the Ivy League school is illegal. (Both lawsuits also allege other legal violations, such as contravention of the First Amendment.)
These lawsuits have a high chance of succeeding if a court rules on their merits, said Dorf. But even if those lawsuits are successful, the administration’s abuse of Title VI could nonetheless continue to damage universities. The Trump administration could quietly deny future grants to universities on the same grounds without explicitly saying so, “making it difficult to prove that the denial of any particular grant” was done illegally, Dorf said. Further, there’s no guarantee that the administration would follow a court ruling demanding that the federal government restore the grants. Even with a favorable ruling on Title VI, then, Dorf said, “there’s a real risk that this administration won’t comply.”
I’m Arielle Angel, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents. Before you go, there’s something I need to ask.
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