You wouldn’t know it, but Harvard has released its first public report on complaints filed under its University-wide Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying (NDAB) policy. The University appears to have made no public announcement of its publication. The numbers deserve more attention than that.
We read every case summary and found something striking: of the 50 formal complaints involving discrimination filed between September 2023 and December 2025, 10 proceeded to investigation and eight reached determinations — but none led to a finding that Harvard’s NDAB policy had been violated.
This report is an annual requirement under Harvard’s January 2025 settlement with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law over Title VI antisemitism allegations and a recommendation from Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.
Harvard doesn’t explicitly highlight the absence of violation findings; readers have to piece it together by combing through each case description. And while those summaries describe how individual complaints were handled, they provide too little detail to assess why some complaints proceeded to investigation and others didn’t, or why the investigated ones produced no violations.
That leaves an important question unanswered: Are Harvard’s standards for opening investigations and determining violations appropriately calibrated?
Here’s what you need to know:
None of the 50 formal complaints involving discrimination resulted in a finding of a discrimination policy violation.
Between September 2023 and December 2025, Harvard received 204 reports and 77 formal complaints of discrimination and/or bullying. By Harvard’s definition, the two don’t overlap in its NDAB report: a matter that became a formal complaint is counted as a complaint, not as a report.
A report brings alleged misconduct to Harvard’s attention and may prompt supportive measures such as a no-contact order or changes to work schedule assignments.
A formal complaint requests an investigation into alleged misconduct, which Harvard determines whether to pursue. Harvard’s policy encourages, but doesn’t require, people to consult a local resource before filing one.
Of the 77 formal complaints, 50 involved alleged discrimination. Harvard opened investigations into 10 (20%), though the case summaries provide limited insight into how those decisions were made. One of those ten was withdrawn, another was closed after the respondent (the person accused) left Harvard, and in the remaining eight, Harvard found no violation.
Under Harvard’s NDAB policy, a formal complaint may be dismissed without investigation if it’s deemed “frivolous” or “insubstantial,” falls “outside the scope of applicable policy,” or is “otherwise unable to state a claim for relief.” A determination panel decides “using a preponderance of the evidence standard” whether the policy was violated, meaning a violation must be more likely than not to have occurred.
While the table covers all 50 complaints involving discrimination, including 26 that also alleged bullying, Harvard provides no comparable breakdown for the 27 complaints alleging only bullying. It’s unclear whether any of those resulted in findings of policy violations.
Reports of discrimination and bullying have continued to rise, while formal complaints have recently slowed.
Harvard received 46 reports between September 2023 and June 2024, 89 in fiscal year (FY) 2025 (July 2024 – June 2025), and 69 in just the first six months of FY26 (July – December 2025).
Formal complaints initially increased, from 23 between September 2023 and June 2024 to 43 in FY25, before declining to 11 in the first half of FY26.
The report doesn’t explain this divergence. New University-wide NDAB training in recent years may have increased community awareness of different reporting options, but reluctance to pursue formal complaints or other factors could also contribute.
More than a third of formal discrimination complaints involved antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias.
Of the 50 formal complaints involving discrimination claims, Harvard categorized 18 (36%) as involving antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias; four (8%) as involving anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, or anti-Palestinian bias; and 28 (56%) as involving other protected characteristics, including race, national origin, disability, sex, and age.
Among the antisemitism-related complaints, one student alleged a classmate made made an antisemitic comment in the classroom; another alleged exclusion from student government activities. Other allegations involved harassment connected to campus protests and University staff allegedly responding to discrimination concerns “differently than they responded to concerns of other types of discrimination.”
Harvard sometimes took action even when it determined complaints didn’t warrant investigation.
In the classroom case above, Harvard determined the alleged conduct didn’t meet its threshold for discrimination. Nevertheless, it offered the student a no-contact order and met with the course instructor “to reiterate the ways in which they could promote an inclusive classroom environment.”
In the student government case, the complaint also didn’t proceed to investigation. The chair of the Administrative Board (the disciplinary body) met with outgoing Student Government presidents to address the reported conduct and incoming presidents to set expectations for the coming year. Harvard also says “the School implemented new Student Government practices in the Fall 2025 semester.”
When 10 complaints proceed to investigation but none result in a finding of a violation, it’s reasonable to ask whether the threshold for opening an investigation, or for finding a violation, is set in the right place.
The report covers complaints filed only through December 2025. Future annual reports may help establish whether the absence of violation findings in this first report reflects a continuing pattern.
And Harvard is now reviewing its NDAB policies, as it had promised to do after three years. This report provides a starting place to understand how complaints were handled. The review offers an opportunity to understand why they produced the outcomes they did.
Ask 1636
Send us your Harvard and higher education questions!
Q: Are other universities subject to the endowment tax after this year’s huge returns?
Yes, though to varying degrees. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT face an 8% endowment tax because their endowments are above $2 million per student. Brown has moved into the 4% tax tier from the 1.4% tier: its 19.6% return in FY26 grew its endowment to $9.5 billion, putting it over the threshold of $750,000 in endowment per student. Penn, WashU, Dartmouth, and Vanderbilt remain at 4% (WashU posted a 37.3% return in FY26 and Penn posted 27.4%, while Vanderbilt and Dartmouth haven’t yet released their FY26 returns). Princeton now owes nothing: its endowment per student is above the $2 million threshold for the 8% tax, but it expanded undergraduate financial aid in the spring, which left it with fewer than 3,000 tuition-paying students (the minimum for the tax to apply).
Events
Chicago, IL — November 12 from 5:30-8:00 p.m. CT: Meet HKS Dean Jeremy Weinstein at this HKS on the Road series event. Register here.
FYIs
Harvard Graduate Student Workers Set October 27 Strike Date as Two Other Unions Consider Walkouts
Harvard’s graduate student union (HGSU-UAW), which represents more than 4,000 student workers, plans to strike beginning October 27 unless it reaches a contract agreement with the University. Members include teaching fellows who lead discussion sections for Harvard College lectures. The strike was authorized by 88% of voting members; a 40-day strike last spring was authorized by 96% of voting members.
The union seeks higher wages, additional protections for noncitizen workers, and an independent grievance process for harassment and discrimination complaints. Harvard says it has offered a 6.1% immediate pay increase upon signing a contract and nearly 16% over its duration.
The University has also warned that another walkout over the same contract demands as last spring could be classified as an “intermittent strike” under federal labor law, potentially leaving participating workers without the legal protections generally afforded to strikers. HGSU disputes the “intermittent strike” characterization.
Two other Harvard unions could also strike this semester. Harvard Academic Workers (HAW-UAW), which represents lecturers, preceptors, and other academic workers, authorized a strike in July. A strike could disrupt entire College courses, including Expository 20, Harvard College’s required first-year writing class taught by preceptors. 89% of voting Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) workers authorized a strike on October 20. Neither union has announced a strike date.
Bill Ackman Says Harvard Has Changed for the Better, Credits President Garber
In an appearance on The Katie Miller Podcast, Bill Ackman (AB ‘88, MBA ‘92) said a Harvard professor recently told him the University has “changed dramatically in the last few years,” with students more willing to speak freely. He credited President Alan Garber (AB ‘76, PhD ‘82) for “creating an environment that is more accepting” of differing views, though he added that Harvard’s faculty “has not changed.”
Asked whether he would continue donating to Harvard, Ackman said, “I think Harvard’s okay. I’m not worried about Harvard,” adding, “I have other philanthropic things I’m focused on.” In August, he announced a $400 million gift to establish the Ackman Oxman Institute for brain research and rehabilitation following his daughter’s brain hemorrhage.
During a ‘would you rather’ game segment, Miller asked Ackman, “Would you rather be forced to give Harvard 100 million or have Harvard name a gender studies department after you?” Ackman replied, “I’d rather give 100 million.”
New Study Finds Shift Toward Identity and Power in Humanities Scholarship
A new report from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters found a growing emphasis on identity and power, declining attention to aesthetics, and increasingly negative language surrounding Western cultural heritage in humanities scholarship between 1960 and 2025. Harvard Divinity School professor Jon Levenson (AB ‘71, PhD ‘75) served on the study’s advisory committee.
The study also found language associated with truth-seeking (like “evidence” and “hypothesis”) has remained prevalent and its positive associations have remained stable in the humanities. The authors suggest that the changes in humanities scholarship may reflect a shift in cultural values rather than a decline in scholarly standards.
The researchers used natural language processing (NLP) to analyze the full text of 443,543 humanities and social science doctoral dissertations from 678 U.S. universities spanning that period.
The number of recorded humanities dissertations declined 49% between 2015 and 2025, compared with a 4.5% decline in social science dissertations. The authors cautioned that delays in registering recent dissertations likely exaggerate the decline.
More News
More News at Harvard
LinkedIn: “Who Are Our Students Becoming?” — by former HBS Dean and professor emeritus Kim Clark (AB ‘74, PhD ‘78) in response to Cambridge Judge Business School professor and former HBS professor Christopher Marquis’s New York Times op-ed, “I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down.”
Harvard Gazette: “Parting words from a scholar who stepped up” — feat. outgoing dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute Tomiko Brown-Nagin
CTech: “John Paulson: ‘A Dollar Invested at Hebrew University Goes Ten Times Further Than at Harvard’” — feat. John Paulson (MBA ‘80)
The Crimson: “Harvard Saw Record International Applications Despite Federal Crackdown, Admissions Dean Tells Alumni”
The Crimson: “Former Harvard AI Adviser Joins Anthropic Oversight Trust Weeks After Stepping Down” — feat. FAS physics and astronomy professor Christopher Stubbs
The Crimson: “Harvard Orders Alumni Interviewers to Delete Past and Current Applicant Data”
The Crimson: “Harvard Resumes Climate Updates After Skipping Report Last Year, Omits Fossil Fuel Investment Figures”
The Crimson: “Harvard Mathematicians Divided Over AI’s Role in Research and Teaching After OpenAI Breakthrough” — feat. FAS math professor Melanie Matchett Wood
The Crimson: “Harvard Lobbied on Trump’s Visa Cap as Federal Lobbying Spending Dips to $200,000”
Harvard Gazette: “‘I Don’t Know if This Is Going to Turn Out Well.’” — feat. Catalyst professor of applied mathematics and applied physics Michael Brenner
STAT: “Dana-Farber, Beth Israel to Begin Construction of New $1.68 Billion Cancer Hospital”
Boston Globe: “‘Difficult but Necessary’: Mass General Brigham Makes Layoffs for Second Time in Two Years”
The Free Press: “Obesity Isn’t Unhealthy, and Other Lessons from Harvard Medical School”
Harvard School of Public Health: “AI’s role in learning, research, and career exploration—using tools thoughtfully, ethically”
Boston Globe: “What I Would Love to Say to My Students’ Conservative Parents” — op-ed by Harvard philosophy professor Gina Schouten
The Crimson: “To the Editor: Considering Open Inquiry” — letter by FAS government professor Ryan Enos regarding The Crimson’s characterization of an Open Inquiry panel
The Crimson: “I Voted for the Cap on A’s. Here’s My Strategy for Implementing It.” — op-ed by Harvard philosophy professor Susanna Rinard
The Crimson: “Keep Cooperating. We Did the Math.” — op-ed by Harvard economics professors Edward Glaeser and Davide Viviano
The Crimson: “Don’t Concentrate on the Money” — editorial by The Crimson Editorial Board
The Crimson: “Dissent: College Is Worth It — But Not Every College.” — dissent by Zakiriya Gladney (AB ‘27) and Benjamin Isaac (AB ‘27)
The Crimson: “Fewer A’s Shouldn’t Mean Fewer Friends” — op-ed by Emily Yu (AB ‘29)
The Crimson: “Kosher Camping Shouldn’t Be This Complicated” — op-ed by Stella Hiltzik (AB ‘30)
More News Beyond Harvard
University of Chicago: “UChicago Launches New Master’s Degree in Applied AI”
U.S. Department of Justice: “Justice Department Announces Settlement Ending Antisemitism and Race Discrimination at UNC”
Cornell Daily Sun: “Conflicted Faculty Senate Debates ‘Vote of No Confidence,’ Presses Cornell President on His Ability To Lead”
Yale Daily News: “Yale Weighing San Francisco Office but Not Satellite Campus, McInnis Says”
Yale Daily News: “Faculty Senate Calls on Yale to Change Titles of Instructional Faculty”
Columbia Daily Spectator: “Mnookin Announces Search Committee for CUIMC’s Next CEO” — feat. Columbia President Jennifer Mnookin (AB ‘88)
Washington Free Beacon: “UC Berkeley Law Review Poised To Delete All Application Records After Editors Pledged To Select Applicants Based on Race”
The Economist: “America’s New Era of Private Science”
The Dartmouth: “Board of Trustees to Formally Review Name of BVAC and Leon D. Black 1973 Shakespeare Professorship After Adopting New Naming Policy” — feat. Leon Black (MBA ‘75)
Daily Pennsylvanian: “Penn’s Revised Open Expression Guidelines Expand Committee Oversight, Clarify Protest Policies”
Carnegie Mellon University: “Jignesh Patel Tapped To Lead CMU Miami as Founding Dean, Vice President”
University of Chicago: “Politically Polarized Teams Produce Better Work, Analysis of Wikipedia Finds”
Boston Globe: “What’s the Point of MIT? OpenAI’s Math Proofs Have Thrown Students and Researchers Into Chaos.”
Wall Street Journal: “A Princeton Ph.D. Applied to 2,300 Jobs. He Still Can’t Get One.”
Wall Street Journal: “Why CEOs Go Back to School After Making It to the Top”
Chronicle of Philanthropy: “What Colleges and Universities Need From Donors to Thrive”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “The Case Against Remote Work” — feat. University of Virginia economics professor Emma Harrington (PhD ‘21) and Federal Reserve Bank of New York economist Natalia Emanuel (PhD ‘21)
Kyle Saunders’s Substack: “The AI Task Force Inventory Is Updated (Seven New Reports, and Some Second Thoughts on Detectors)” — by Colorado State University professor Kyle Saunders
Free the Inquiry: “If Political Polarization Broke College, How Do We Fix It?” — by Fort Lewis College philosophy professor Justin McBrayer, on Neil Gross’s What Happened to College?
Arena: “Please Don’t Abolish My Business School” — op-ed by University of Wyoming College of Business dean Scott Beaulier
Washington Post: “Colleges should offer three-year degrees” — op-ed by NYU president Linda Mills
eJewishPhilanthropy: “One year later, are we getting smarter about antisemitism?” — op-ed by Andrés Spokoiny
Poets & Quants: “Exclusive: The Professor Who Called To Abolish Business Schools Tells P&Q What He’d Build Instead” — feat. Cambridge Judge Business School professor and former HBS professor Christopher Marquis
Wall Street Journal: “Radical Professors Have Poisoned the Electorate” — op-ed by UC Santa Cruz professor emeritus John Ellis
STAT: “Replication Is Necessary Even if Scientists Do Everything Right” — op-ed by Penn State health policy professor Mark Louie Ramos