Harvard shuts down Gender Equity office

Harvard University has officially closed its Gender Equity office and merged it into a larger bureaucratic unit.

The school announced the change Monday amid growing pressure from the Trump administration over how it handles civil rights issues – particularly antisemitism, the Harvard Crimson reports.

The new office is called the Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities. It replaces both the Office for Gender Equity and the Office for Community Conduct.

For years, Harvard’s Gender Equity office handled the school’s Title IX work, managing sexual harassment complaints and pushing transgender inclusion.

In an email to students and staff, Harvard’s Title IX coordinator Nicole Merhill said the merger would streamline how the university handles discrimination complaints.

“We recognized that our community was confused by different offices handling concerns that touched on issues of discrimination,” Merhill told the Harvard Gazette, a university-run publication.

The decision comes as Harvard faces a federal investigation.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a Title VI probe into antisemitism on campus earlier this year. The investigation was later handed off to the U.S. Department of Justice after Harvard reportedly refused to cooperate with some requests.

Title VI, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded institutions.

The Trump administration has used this law to go after elite schools such as Harvard, accusing them of ignoring antisemitism while focusing too much on identity politics. To handle these complaints, Harvard is hiring a Title VI coordinator and two deputy staffers.

Merhill, who spent 15 years at the U.S. Department of Education, will lead the newly merged office.

The new office will have three teams: survivor support, prevention education and policy enforcement. However, many of the policies and programs pushed by the old Gender Equity office are being watered down.

For example, Harvard recently removed its “Transgender Inclusion Policy” for student athletes. This followed Trump’s executive order banning men from competing in women’s sports at government-funded institutions and the NCAA’s announcement of compliance with the decree.

Harvard also deleted a line in its Title IX policy stating harassment based on gender identity is banned, according to the Crimson. It came shortly after Trump signed an EO removing gender identity as a protected class under federal civil rights law.

To avoid losing federal funding, Harvard is investing more in its Title IX and Title VI offices. This includes new mandatory online training for all students and employees.

The training explicitly addresses antisemitism and Islamophobia, using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The definition includes not only hatred of Jews but also some criticisms of Israel and Zionism deemed antisemitic by its examples.

Harvard adopted this definition in January after it settled lawsuits accusing the university of tolerating antisemitic behavior.