Trump DOJ 'sidelined' its own lawyers who warned cases had 'no factual basis'
Key Takeaways
- •The report says DOJ investigators were pressed to identify civil rights violations at Brown, Columbia and Harvard despite finding no factual basis.
- •Former DOJ lawyer Haley Van Erem and unnamed colleagues said their concerns were sidelined or met with reprimands.
- •The allegations were released by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
- •The report says officials discussed a plan to interview Middle East studies professors at Brown, especially Muslim faculty, to look for statements that could be labeled antisemitic.
- •The Times reported that a proposed Harvard settlement included curriculum oversight, ending DEI programs, seizing endowment money through trusts and directing investment into programs in Israel.
The Trump administration ignored Justice Department investigators who told it to drop cases that lacked any factual basis, according to a Tuesday report by The New York Times.
The Times reported that the DOJ under President Donald Trump pushed investigators to find civil rights violations at three Ivy League universities — Brown, Columbia, and Harvard — and that when the investigators found none, they were "sidelined." The account at the center of the report was released Tuesday by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.
The allegations come from Haley Van Erem, a former DOJ civil rights lawyer, and colleagues whose names were redacted. The Trump administration had used campus antisemitism as a basis for cutting federal grants at Brown, Columbia, and Harvard, but the account from Van Erem and her colleagues said Trump officials pursued "a predetermined, outcome-driven approach to enforcement rather than a fact-based investigative process."
When Van Erem and her colleagues "raised issues with the lack of a factual basis" for targeting the three East Coast Ivy League universities, "their disagreements were sidelined, or they faced reprimands," The Times reported. The allegations matter because the universities at issue receive significant federal research funding, making the boundary between civil rights enforcement and grant leverage especially consequential for campus policy and federal oversight.
Van Erem raised her concerns while she was temporarily assigned to the health department, which oversees some of the largest research funding for universities. In April 2025, she and her colleagues were told about a plan to "systematically interview Middle East studies professors, particularly Muslim faculty" at Brown, with the aim of seeing whether the faculty would say anything that could be labeled as antisemitic, The Times reported.
In April 2025, Sean Keveney, who was then the health department's acting general counsel, told Van Erem that the White House was pulling grants from Harvard and showed her a proposed settlement that included "installing a provost to oversee curriculum, ending DEI programs, placing endowment money in trusts the government could seize and investing in programs in Israel," per The Times.
A DOJ spokesperson told the newspaper: "While at the DOJ, Ms. Haley Van Erem did not work on university investigations. And for all matters, the department stands behind the integrity of these investigations."