Trump administration sues Harvard, alleging school didn’t protect Jewish students as settlement talks go nowhere | CNN Politics

The Trump administration slapped a new multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Harvard University on Friday, alleging that the school is in violation of a civil rights law and has failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from discrimination. It is asking a federal judge to require the school to pay back millions in grant payments and halt more than $2.6 billion in existing grants. The complaint marks the latest effort by President Donald Trump and his team to ratchet up pressure on the Ivy League school as high-level talks toward a settlement have failed to produce a resolution. After months of fits and starts, negotiations had been heating up in early February – until The New York Times reported that the White House had dropped demands for a financial payment from the university, citing multiple unnamed sources. Trump subsequently doubled down on his demands, saying that his administration was “now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages.” Negotiators “were close – and they ghosted,” an administration official told CNN on Friday, saying that there has been “no communication” and that Harvard has been “dragging their feet.” In a statement, the university said it