The civil-rights office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Monday that it is referring Harvard University to the federal agency’s office that bars entities from doing business with the federal government.
The Office for Civil Rights’ “referral of Harvard for formal administrative proceedings reflects OCR’s commitment to safeguard both taxpayer investments and the broader public interest,” stated Paula Stannard, director of the office.
“Congress has empowered federal agencies to pursue Title VI compliance through formal enforcement mechanisms, including the termination of funding or denial of future federal financial assistance, when voluntary compliance cannot be achieved,” Stannard said. (Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry, including religion.)
The office “has notified Harvard of its right to a formal administrative hearing, where an HHS administrative law judge will make an impartial determination on whether Harvard violated Title VI by acting with deliberate indifference towards antisemitic student-on-student harassment,” Stannard said.
Harvard has 20 days to tell the department if it wants to have a hearing. (JNS sought comment from Harvard.)
“Both suspension and debarment have a government-wide effect,” the federal agency said. “An entity, or part of an entity, that is debarred by any federal agency (including HHS) is excluded from entering into a procurement or nonprocurement transaction with other federal agencies.”
