A federal judge, Richard Stearns, has dismissed a lawsuit by the Donald Trump administration alleging that Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.

In his ruling on Thursday, Mr Stearns said the administration’s lawsuit had failed to show an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law on Harvard’s campus.

Noting the the government’s allegations focused largely on incidents amid protests over Israel’s war in Gaza from 2023-2024, the judge said only a few incidents cited in the lawsuit were not enough to support a claim of ongoing civil rights violations.

Mr Stearns added that the lawsuit did not adequately allege failures of the institution to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning discrimination based on race, color and national origin in programmes that receive federal funding.

“Without diminishing any concern arising from these occurrences, the court finds them, singly and collectively, to be too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day,” the judge stated.

The ruling came amid tensions between Mr Trump’s administration and the Ivy League school after the former filed the suit in 2025 alleging that Harvard faculty and leadership “turned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.”

In May last year, the U.S. government banned the university from enrolling international students as a sanction for what his government claimed was tolerating antisemitism.

The decision was, however, temporarily reserved by a U.S. District judge Allison Burroughs.

The institution recently said it condemned antisemitism, expressing commitment to create an enabling environment for all members of the university.

“Harvard condemns antisemitism and is committed to ensuring that Jewish and Israeli students, like all members of the Harvard community, can learn and participate fully in campus life free from harassment or exclusion,” it stated.