The Department of Justice announced in March 2026 that it is suing Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

The lawsuits allege that both universities failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus, violating students’ civil rights.

These cases follow earlier efforts by the Trump administration in 2025 to block federal funding to several major universities. The Trump administration has also – largely unsuccessfully – pushed universities to sign agreements that would give the federal government greater oversight over their day-to-day operations.

In 2025, the Trump administration launched broad Title VI investigations into 60 colleges and universities. These investigations focused on whether schools had done enough to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the subsequent war in Gaza, and widespread protests across U.S. college campuses.

Many of those investigations continue. Title VI is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in any program that receives federal funding.

These federal investigations have prompted scientific researchers, among others, across higher education to ask whether the government can invoke claims of civil rights law violations to justify cutting off federal research funding that supports their labs and projects.

As a scholar of educational leadership and policy, I think it is helpful to place the Trump administration approach to higher education within a broader understanding of how courts have interpreted civil rights laws within the past few decades and the nuanced way the Supreme Court has found they apply to universities.

Supreme Court weighs in

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. This law banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin in employment, education and public places.

Congress then passed the Higher Education Act in 1965. This law significantly increased the federal government’s investment in colleges and universities. It also created the Pell Grant program – the first federally funded need-based financial aid program for undergraduate students.

In addition, the Higher Education Act spelled out that schools that receive federal funding need to comply with civil rights laws.

Leaders of Grove City College, a small nondenominational Christian college in rural Pennsylvania, were concerned that this law would bring unwanted government oversight.

At the time, the college did not accept any direct federal funding. But some of its students received Basic Educational Opportunity Grants. These grants helped undergraduate students pay for college. Unlike loans, these grants did not have to be repaid.

In 1975, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare asked all universities and colleges with students who received federal grants to agree to comply with Title IX, a 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on someone’s sex.

In 1976, Grove City refused to sign on to this agreement. A legal back-and-forth ensued.

Grove City College argued that the federal government’s request amounted to unwarranted government intervention, because the college did not directly receive federal funding. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare threatened to cut off the federal grants Grove City students received.

The Supreme Court eventually ruled in 1984 that Grove City’s financial aid program – but not the entire college – needed to comply with Title IX in order to receive federal aid. That’s because this specific office directly handled federal student aid.

A 1988 law clarifies the ruling

Many House Democrats perceived this Supreme Court ruling as a loophole that would let universities and colleges sidestep civil rights laws by applying them only to the specific programs that received federal funds.

In 1984, a group of Democrats unsuccessfully tried to pass legislation that would have extended civil rights protections across all programs within colleges and universities that receive federal aid for any program. A different version of this bill passed Congress with bipartisan support in 1988, on the brink of the presidential elections.

President Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill. Reagan stated in his explanation to the Senate that this bill “would vastly and unjustifiably expand the power of the Federal Government over the decisions and affairs of private organizations.”

However, many Republicans seeking reelection in Congress feared that rejecting the bill could alienate women and people of color in the upcoming election.

Within a week, Congress voted to override the veto and enacted the Civil Rights Restoration Act in 1988. This law clarified that any college accepting federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all of its programs. This law also allowed the government to withhold federal research funding from colleges based on civil rights violations.

Enforcing civil rights laws today

The Trump administration is testing just how much the federal government can exert power over colleges and universities that receive federal funding. Some Trump administration supporters say they see this strategy as overdue enforcement against discrimination.

On the other hand, the Association of American Universities, an organization made up of American research universities, is among the opposition arguing that the administration is trying to weaponize civil rights laws to control how colleges and universities are run.

Antisemitic incidents are on the rise in the U.S., including on college campuses. But some observers have noted that the issue is nuanced, and that the administration is likely exploiting a controversial issue to achieve ideological goals.

Federal courts’ interpretations in the Harvard and UCLA lawsuits will further shape how civil rights protections are enforced at colleges and universities. Specifically, these cases will help determine whether the mere allegations of civil rights violations against a university can justify a sweeping freeze of federal research funding.

Ryan Creps does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Since March 2025, at least 15 Florida public universities and colleges, including the University of Florida and Florida State College at Jacksonville, have signed memorandums of agreement for their campus police departments to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

These partnerships authorize ICE agents to expand the role of campus police officers so they can receive training and “perform certain functions of an immigration officer.”

The agreements give campus police officers the federal authority to question students who are believed to be immigrants about their legal right to be in the country. Campus police officers can arrest students if the officers have “reason to believe the alien to be arrested is in the United States in violation of law.” Campus police can also check federal immigration databases to see students’ immigration status.

The list of universities in the state that have signed on to these agreements includes leading research universities such as Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University in Miami, or FIU, where we work as professors of education. We are unaware of any school in the Florida state university system that has publicly said they will not sign an agreement.

In the past few decades, the U.S. government has classified universities as “sensitive” spaces that are protected from aggressive immigration enforcement. This means that schools, like churches and hospitals, have until recently been generally considered off-limits for immigration enforcement officers.

In January 2025, President Donald Trump revoked these long-standing Department of Homeland Security protections.

A shift on campus

As scholars, we study relationships between schools and democracy, from how students learn languages to how students and educators can become leaders.

As professors, we teach many students who are immigrants or are from foreign countries who come to the U.S. for their studies, as well as many who are children of immigrants.

As a result of these new initiatives, we are seeing and personally experiencing an intensifying climate of uncertainty and anxiety on our campus. These policies are worsening many of our students’ sense of belonging.

Understanding the changes

Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement is supported by the federal 287(g) program, a 1996 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. This amendment to the wide-ranging immigration law lets ICE delegate certain federal enforcement activities to local state police.

In February 2025, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directed state universities to enter into 287(g) partnerships with ICE and to “deputize” university police officers to enforce federal immigration laws on school campuses.

ICE does not have blanket access to student records, which remain protected under federal privacy law. But 287(g) agreements create new pathways for information to flow through campus police encounters, effectively lowering the barrier between university data and federal immigration enforcement.

There are no official reports of FIU or other Florida university campus police officers arresting students because of their immigration status. A few college students, though, have been detained off-campus by local police agencies and then turned over to ICE.

FIU’s communications team wrote in a statement to The Conversation: “Last year FIU Police signed a 287(g) memorandum of agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as have other state university, local and state law enforcement agencies in Florida. The 287(g) memorandum of agreement for Florida International University is readily available from ICE.gov.”

“Since signing the agreement, there have been no immigration-related enforcement actions on our campuses,” FIU’s statement continued.

Florida Atlantic University did not respond to a request for comment.

In January 2026, an immigration activist recorded FIU’s chief of police saying at a FIU meeting that if ICE requests campus police’s help, they would comply.

As FIU faculty members, we have not received any explicit guidance on what to do if an ICE agent comes to campus, or if a campus police officer tries to arrest someone for immigration reasons in our classrooms.

FIU President Jeanette Nuñez said in 2025 that there was “much confusion, much angst, and much misinformation” about the agreement.

Other universities have emphasized the need to comply with state directives.

Some Florida university officials have said that campus police will not target students or conduct raids as part of their routine cooperation with federal authorities.

Heightened stress and anxiety

As educators, our work has shifted over this past academic year from providing instruction to focusing more on mentoring our students as whole people. Our students are questioning how much their university supports them.

Daily, we observe how Trump’s immigration policies, including travel bans the U.S. has placed on certain countries, heighten stress for all of our students, regardless of their immigration status. Our international and immigrant students have told us they are fearful of the government’s increased surveillance.

One graduate student shared that he was hesitant to leave his dorm room and participate in any campus activities for fear of possible arrest because of his immigration status.

Another student said he would not leave the U.S. to visit his mother who was sick with cancer for fear he would not be let back into the country. His mother has since passed without his presence.

Many students, including one international doctoral student and father to young children, are unable to return to their homeland and visit their relatives or conduct research due to current travel bans placed upon 75 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East.

These new policies have also prompted student and faculty protests at our university and other public universities across Florida.

Some Florida Atlantic University students in Boca Raton staged a walkout on Feb. 25, 2026, to protest the school’s agreement with ICE.

Florida State University students called on administrators in February 2026 to set up a “sanctuary campus,” which would limit FSU partnerships with ICE.

We are trying to create more opportunities for open dialogue and for sharing students’ emotions and experiences related to these policies. We are also helping students find resources, including legal aid, that could help them or their peers if they have a negative encounter with ICE or campus police.

Refuge or risk

Universities, especially in conservative states such as Florida, may continue to market themselves as places of inclusion, mobility and global belonging. This is true even as schools cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs and as some students experience heightened surveillance, visa cancellations, detention or deportation.

One of our FIU graduate students recently explained how these policies are affecting their day-to-day life.

“I just want to finish my studies as soon as possible and go back to my country. I feel unwelcome and unsafe on campus. I don’t want to join campus activities anymore because students can be targeted there,” the student said. “I no longer trust campus police officers and won’t ask them for help, even if I need it. I am afraid I will be profiled even though I am here legally.”

When campus police are folded into federal immigration work, we believe that universities cannot claim they offer more refuge than risk.

Ryan W. Pontier receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education. He is affiliated with P.S. 305 in Miami.

Anindya Kundu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.