Afrasianet - "Al-Quds Al-Arabi" says it has seen a full version of a complaint filed by a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer revealing "legal abuses, mismanagement, waste of public funds, and abuse of power" during investigations by President Donald Trump's administration into allegations of anti-Semitism at Columbia, Brown and Harvard universities.
Former Justice Department civil rights lawyer Haley Van Erm filed her statement as a "whistleblower" through the Government Accountability Project to the Office of the Special Counsel and the Inspector General's Bodies at the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services.
The document, obtained by Al-Quds Al-Arabi, details the pressures on government lawyers during the investigations, what the whistleblower describes as using federal funding as a means of pressuring universities, as well as questions about targeting activities and protests in solidarity with Palestine.
The affidavit, dated August 17, 2026, says that senior officials in the Ministries of Justice and Health have deviated from the procedures used in Title VI investigations of the Civil Rights Act, undermining due process guarantees and the accuracy of investigations, and turning them, according to the lawyer, into tools to implement political priorities rather than evidence-based enforcement of civil rights laws.
Rehiring lawyers to investigate universities
On February 3, 2025, the Trump administration began forming a Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, with the participation of the Departments of Justice, Health, and Education, with the stated goal of addressing anti-Semitic harassment in schools and universities.
Weeks later, a number of professional lawyers at the Justice Department, including Van Erm, who had spent nearly a decade at the department, were temporarily reassigned to work with the Health Department's Office of Civil Rights on investigations involving Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Harvard universities.
The affidavit states that the lawyers were suddenly informed of the assignment, despite their links to other cases, and that their redeployment weakened the work on existing files, including those related to the rights of persons with disabilities.
Van Erm said the team of lawyers had expected any punitive measures to be based on thorough investigations and documented evidence, but that they faced increasing pressure to complete the investigations in very short periods of time.
"The results were predetermined"
The most serious part of the affidavit is that it accuses administration officials of having predetermined the results of certain investigations before the evidence was collected and analyzed.
Van Erm says that in some cases her team has found a weak factual basis for opening investigations, and that the legal objections raised by lawyers have not been taken seriously, and some have even been reprimanded when they have raised questions about the legal basis for the investigations or procedures.
Van Erm: Instead of going the usual sequence of gathering evidence and then analyzing it and then determining if there was a violation, in some cases the investigations seemed to work backwards, looking for facts that could be used to support settlements or outcomes that the administration had previously sought.
The report notes that investigations, rather than proceeding in the usual sequence of gathering evidence, analysing it and then determining whether there was a violation that in some cases appeared to be working in reverse, sought facts that could be used to support settlements or findings that the Department had previously sought.
Colombia.. Hundreds of millions frozen before investigation is completed
On March 7, 2025, the administration announced the cancellation of nearly $400 million in federal grants and contracts awarded to Columbia University, amid accusations that the administration did not adequately address what the administration described as the ongoing harassment of Jewish students.
But the affidavit says that Justice Department lawyers who were later assigned to investigate initially found insufficient evidence of a violation of Title VI law at the university's medical school.
According to Van Erm, the investigation later expanded from the medical school to the entire university rather than being closed, after officials in the Health Department's Office of Civil Rights acknowledged that the evidence gathered up to that time may not be enough to prove wrongdoing.
She adds that a Health Ministry official told the lawyers that the goal was to complete the investigation within 45 days by focusing on the most serious allegations, which the lawyers objected to, considering that the period was insufficient to review the amount of evidence required and prove that the "Title VI" law was violated.
It also says that the draft findings on Colombia were sent to lawyers for review in a very tight time, giving them only a few hours to evaluate facts that could have been used to justify the suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Van Erm noted that parts of the draft included activities protected by the First Amendment, such as protests and political expression, and cautioned against considering these activities in themselves as grounds for violating the Civil Rights Act.
Brown.. An investigation that found no violation and then refused to close it
The Brown University case provides the most striking example of deposition. After interviewing witnesses and reviewing documents, the team concluded that it had not found sufficient evidence to prove a violation of Title VI.
According to the affidavit, investigators identified two incidents that could be linked to the investigation: a threatening letter sent to the Jewish student organization Hillel, the owner of which was identified and dismissed and the university took additional security measures; and a protest by members of Students for Justice in Palestine outside the medical school.
The affidavit argues that Brown's response to both incidents was swift and effective, which, according to the lawyers, does not meet the standard of "willful negligence" required to establish the institution's liability under Title VI.
Instead, a Health Department official said it was "very difficult" to prove deliberate indifference in Brown's case.
However, Van Erm says the leadership refused to allow the investigation to be closed and to issue a notice stating that there was no wrongdoing.
According to the affidavit, official Daniel Shea told the lawyers that senior officials "would not accept" the closure of Brown's case with this outcome, adding that "everything is arranged in a certain sequence."
Van Erm interprets this as an indication that the investigations were not driven by evidence, but rather as part of a broader political strategy aimed at using a major university as a model to pressure other universities to accept settlements.
Accusations of targeting Middle East studies professors
The affidavit also includes controversial accusations about interviews conducted or planned with Middle East studies professors, particularly Muslim professors.
Van Erm says an official made it clear during a meeting that the purpose of meeting a professor was not necessarily to "get information," but to find out "what he was going to say."
Van Erm quotes a Trump administration official: The purpose of interviewing a professor was not necessarily to "get information," but to find out "what he will say."
Counsel and her team argued that this could mean looking for statements that could be described as anti-Semitic, rather than investigating a specific incident.
The affidavit says that the lawyers objected to the inclusion of professors who had no apparent connection to complaints of anti-Semitism and suggested that allegations of anti-Muslim bias be investigated to ensure consistent application of Title VI law, but these proposals were not pursued.
The report also notes that an attorney at the Department of Health's Office of Civil Rights said he was 99 percent sure there were no complaints of Title VI violations against Brown in the agency's complaints system.
Federal Funds as a Lobbying Tool
The affidavit accuses officials of using federal funding as a pressure card on universities to force them to accept settlements.
"The goal is compliance, but withdrawing money is the tool," Shea was quoted as saying during a meeting that retrieving money after it had been paid is difficult, so funding should be withdrawn if officials think something "will become a problem."
The affidavit says officials also sought to use other powers to withdraw contracts or grants, outside of the procedures set out in Title VI law, which the lawyers saw as an attempt to circumvent legal safeguards imposed before the funding was withheld due to civil rights violations.
The document notes that in cases involving universities, federal courts subsequently rejected the administration's attempts to use public powers to withhold funding when the actual motive was related to allegations of discrimination under Title VI, arguing that the law required specific procedures before cutting off funding.
Harvard. Terms of an "exceptional" settlement
The affidavit says the Health Ministry was also seeking a settlement with Harvard that included broad terms, including arrangements with the police, the appointment of an official to oversee the curriculum, the termination of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and the placement of funds from the university's endowment into funds that could be seized by the government, as well as investments in programs inside Israel.
Van Erm asserts that, as she has seen, these conditions were not linked to specific findings demonstrating violations of Title VI law.
It also raised concerns about the First Amendment to the Constitution, especially with regard to government oversight of the school curriculum.
After the negotiations collapsed, Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in April 2025, challenging the legality of the administration's demands and funding freeze procedures.
The affidavit considers that the lawsuit reinforced legal concerns that lawyers had raised internally about the way investigations were conducted.
Accusations of abuse of power and waste of public funds
The affidavit concludes that what happened, if proven, could constitute several offenses, including abuse of power, gross mismanagement, waste of federal funds, violation of Title VI procedures, and arbitrary decisions made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
The document says that redirecting experienced lawyers away from other cases that were nearing the end of their resources to use their resources in investigations, some of which it said were not based on clear factual grounds, was a waste of government resources.
It also warns that political pressure on lawyers could undermine the independence of government investigations and weaken the credibility of civil rights law enforcement.
The Government Accountability Project, which represents Van Erm and other lawyers, stressed that the testimony does not challenge the seriousness of anti-Semitism or the federal government's right to investigate and address unlawful discrimination.
But lawyers say the fight against anti-Semitism must be done through impartial, evidence-based investigations, while respecting due process and constitutional safeguards, including the First Amendment's protection of freedom of expression.
The lawyers asked the Senate and House Judiciary Committees and the relevant Health, Education and Labor Committees to urgently monitor the case, preserve relevant records and documents, and summon officials from the Ministries of Justice and Health to brief and testify on investigations, funding suspensions and settlements.
They also offered to arrange a confidential statement with Van Erm and other former lawyers who said they could corroborate the complaint, while providing appropriate safeguards to protect whistleblowers from reprisals.
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Source: Al-Quds Al-Arabi
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