My Supplemental Submission to the US Civil Rights Commission

The submission addresses questions posed by the US Civil Rights Commission regarding the federal response to campus antisemitism, specifically concerning the application of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The author argued that the Trump Administration's actions in cutting or freezing federal funding to universities were unlawful because they failed to adhere to the procedural and substantive statutory requirements under Title VI, specifically 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1, which mandate specific procedures before terminating financial assistance. The author contended that the administration failed to follow these procedures when issuing funding freezes or terminations, citing a lack of required notices, hearings, or findings on the record.
Regarding the unconstitutionality claim, the submission referenced a district court decision where summary judgment was granted for Harvard based on three free speech claims related to retaliation, viewpoint-based restrictions, and coercion. The author asserted that the administration's conduct against other universities was also unconstitutional in the second and third ways identified in the Harvard case. Furthermore, the response addressed the IHRA definition, arguing that incorporating it into federal law would create an unconstitutional presumption that speech critical of Israel is antisemitic, violating the First Amendment, due to the difficulty in rebutting examples provided by the definition. The author concluded that while research funding cuts were destructive, the executive branch lacked the authority to unilaterally cancel funds without following established legal procedures, and that applying a presumptively antisemitic standard risks suppressing protected speech.

* The submission was made on March 24, 2026.
* The author referenced questions posed by the US Civil Rights Commission regarding federal action on campus antisemitism.
* The author addressed two questions related to statutory requirements for funding cutoffs under Title VI (42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1) and the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
* The author referenced a federal district court opinion in *President & Fellows of Harvard Coll. v. United States Dep't of Health & Hum. Servs.*, 798 F. Supp. 3d 77, 125-26 (D. Mass. 2025), concerning funding freezes.
* The author stated that the administrative record lacked evidence of required procedural steps for funding termination under Title VI.
* The author referenced a statement co-authored with Professors Eugene Volokh and David Cole regarding targeting of Columbia University.
* The summary of the statutory requirements under 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1 requires advising appropriate persons, determining non-compliance cannot be secured voluntarily, obtaining a finding on the record after a hearing, and filing a report with Congress before termination can become effective thirty days later.
* The author referenced findings from the Harvard Task Force on Combating Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli Bias (April 29, 2025).
* The submission concluded that adopting the IHRA definition would create an unconstitutional presumption against protected speech critical of Israel.

The core tension in this submission lies between administrative action claiming authority and the established procedural safeguards of constitutional law and statutory regulation. The author constructs a strong argument by dissecting administrative actions—funding cuts and policy demands—not merely as matters of policy disagreement, but as violations of formal legal procedure (Title VI) and fundamental constitutional rights (First Amendment). The analysis pivots on establishing that the mechanism used by the administration to impose consequences (funding cutoffs) bypassed required due process. This strategy employs a dual focus: procedural legality concerning funding and constitutional legality concerning speech.
A significant pattern emerges in how the author connects systemic administrative failures to individual constitutional harm. By linking the failure to follow Title VI procedures to the resulting chilling effect on academic freedom—demonstrated by faculty self-censorship and demands for viewpoint diversity—the submission reframes an administrative enforcement action into an existential threat to the university’s constitutional mission. The discussion regarding the IHRA definition introduces a meta-level critique: applying external definitions to internal institutional speech risks creating a state-sanctioned limitation on protected expression, functioning as an irrebuttable presumption.
The analysis demonstrates that controlling the *process* of government action is as constitutionally significant as the outcome itself. The pattern suggests that when governments utilize statutory power to exert control over academic discourse, the legitimacy of that control hinges entirely on adherence to narrowly defined legal mechanisms. The potential implication for agency is whether institutional autonomy and the freedom to engage in critical public discourse can be protected when external political pressures are translated into internal administrative mandates, regardless of the stated policy goals. This demands inquiry into where legal constraints on administrative flexibility intersect with fundamental rights.