The Trump administration continued to pursue a settlement agreement with Brown over antisemitism allegations despite a lack of evidence, a complaint released on Tuesday alleges.
In the complaint, former U.S. Department of Justice attorney Haley Van Erem and her colleagues, whose names were redacted, allege that the outcomes of the Trump administration’s investigations into antisemitism at Brown, Columbia and Harvard were “predetermined, without regard to the evidence.”
“While at the DOJ, Ms. Haley Van Erem did not work on university investigations,” a DOJ spokesperson wrote in a message to The Herald. “And for all matters, the Department stands behind the integrity of these investigations.”
Last year, the Trump administration formed its multi-agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, following reports of antisemitic incidents during protests related to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The Task Force launched several investigations into universities’ compliance with Title VI, which bans discrimination on race or national origin by any program receiving federal funds.
The investigations were “marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support, and disregard for Title VI’s legal requirements and the First Amendment to meet the political mission” of the DOJ entity tasked with undertaking them, the complaint reads.
As a result of the DOJ’s investigation into Brown, the University entered into an agreement with the Trump administration last July in which Brown committed to pay $50 million in grants to R.I. workforce development organizations over 10 years. The University also agreed to follow the Trump administration’s gender classifications for sports and housing as well as report data on admissions and diversity and inclusion efforts. In exchange, Brown’s Title VI review was terminated, and over $50 million in research grants were reimbursed.
“At no time was Brown informed of any finding that the University violated any law,” University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “Even so, a freeze on funding for the University's federally sponsored medical and health sciences research had posed enormous challenges for Brown’s research mission.”
If the freeze were to be unresolved, he added, it “would have undermined our ability to conduct life-saving research and to offer our students a world-class education,” he wrote.
According to the complaint, Van Erem and a colleague became worried that the Department of Health and Human Services, a party to the Task Force, “had a political motivation to manufacture facts” in the Brown investigation.
The report alleges that an HHS Office for Civil Rights Associate Deputy Director Daniel Shieh described a plan to interview Brown’s Middle Eastern, and particularly Muslim faculty, to elicit what Van Erem understood as viewpoints that the task force could construe as antisemitic.
Shieh and HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On April 28, 2025, the DOJ group investigating Brown had a meeting in which they shared that they “did not find facts sufficient to justify Title VI violations, which should have ended the inquiry,” according to the report.
Aside from two examples of antisemitism on campus the team found — a threatening letter sent to Hillel and a pro-divestment protest outside of a Brown Corporation meeting — “the team’s conclusion was unequivocal: meeting the deliberate indifference standard required to find a Title VI violation by the institution would be extremely difficult at Brown.”
Van Erem suggested sending a closure letter to Brown saying that no violations were found, but “Shieh conveyed the higher-ups would never accept that result because ‘everything is sequenced.’”
“The Task Force’s Title VI investigations, legal analysis, and findings were subordinate to political priorities rather than the enforcement of civil rights,” the complaint reads. “These developments warrant urgent and fulsome oversight and investigation.”
Jeremiah Farr is a senior staff writer covering university hall and higher education.
