A whistleblower told Congress the White House ordered HHS to pull hundreds of millions from Harvard before any investigation concluded

What happened

In March 2025, the Justice Department detailed career civil-rights attorneys, without their consent, to HHS to staff the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. The team was to investigate Harvard, Columbia and Brown under Title VI. One of them, Haley Van Erem, later filed a whistleblower disclosure with the Office of Special Counsel, two inspectors general and four congressional committees.

Her disclosure, released by House Judiciary Democrats on August 17, 2026, says HHS Acting General Counsel Sean Keveney told her by April 3, 2025 that the White House had ordered HHS to pull hundreds of millions of dollars from Harvard. Education Secretary Linda McMahon then called the White House because negotiations were in progress.

Van Erem says the cuts preceded any finding of a Title VI violation. She says Keveney told the team on April 1 that the goal was to force the universities into lawsuits and to insert a “poison pill” admission of liability into any settlement. He said Harvard would settle because it was “over a barrel.” Judge Allison Burroughs ordered the cuts reversed in September 2025.

Who benefited

The White House used grant money as leverage to extract settlement terms. Per the disclosure, those included a government-approved provost over curriculum, the end of DEI programs and endowment funds placed in trusts the government could seize. The Domestic Policy Council took over decisions normally made under Title VI procedures.

Who wanted something

Stephen Miller’s Domestic Policy Council and the antisemitism task force led from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division wanted Harvard to settle, as did HHS political leadership including Keveney. Trump had publicly demanded that Harvard change its governance and admissions and had threatened its tax-exempt status.

Who lost out

Harvard researchers lost NIH and other grants that were frozen. Career attorneys say they were told not to raise legal questions. The Title VI process requires notice, findings, a hearing and a report to Congress before funds are cut, and a federal judge vacated the Harvard terminations on those grounds in September 2025.

Why it matters

This is first-hand testimony from inside the government that the Harvard cuts were ordered from the White House before investigators had found any violation. It also says the civil-rights investigation was treated as leverage for a settlement. The disclosure is one attorney’s account, filed with Congress; the government’s appeal was still pending in August 2026.

Sources House Judiciary Committee Democrats / Government Accountability Project (primary)PBS News / APInside Higher Ed