Whistleblower: Task Force Rigged Ivy Antisemitism Probes

A former Justice Department civil rights attorney has filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that a Trump administration antisemitism task force pressured Ivy League universities into settlements before the investigations against them were complete or legally supported.

The attorney, Haley Van Erem, spent nearly a decade at the Justice Department, according to MS NOW, which first reported the complaint.

The complaint deals chiefly with investigations into three schools: Brown, Harvard and Columbia.

What the Complaint Alleges

Van Erem says the task force demanded money from the schools before the evidence was in.

At Brown, she says, investigators found no violation of Title VI — the federal civil rights law barring discrimination by recipients of federal funding — but leadership blocked the notice saying so and pushed for a settlement instead.

The complaint also alleges investigators were directed to interview Muslim professors not to gather evidence, but to monitor what they would say.