Hate Crimes, Violent Crime at Harvard Rose in 2025, According to HUPD Annual Report

The number of hate crimes reported by the Harvard University Police Department increased by 50 percent from 2024 to 2025 — as total crime fell by 18 percent — according to HUPD’s annual security report.

The report, released Thursday, outlined 12 hate crimes across Harvard’s campuses in Cambridge and Boston, compared to eight the year prior. Of the hate crimes reported in 2025, more than half were motivated by religion.

HUPD’s report does not detail each incident or its date, but provides a short description of each. Five incidents include an aggravated assault motivated by disability, a vandalism motivated by race, two assaults motivated by ethnicity and national origin, and an act of intimidation motivated by sexual orientation.

The largest share of hate crimes reported were on the basis of religion — including three vandalisms, three assaults, and one act of intimidation.

The uptick in campus hate crimes comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly used allegations of antisemitism on campus as ammunition for its attempts to restrict Harvard’s federal research funding and ability to enroll international students. The Department of Justice launched their largest campaign against alleged antisemitism in March, suing the University for being “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitism within its walls.

The suit was later dismissed in August, after a federal judge found that the government had cited incidents that were too isolated to portray a persistent civil rights violation, but the Department of Justice has since appealed the decision.

As hate crimes at Harvard increased, violent crimes also rose in 2025 — including a 31 percent increase in reports of aggravated assault, totaling 46 reports last year. Reported domestic violence incidents also spiked, rising from six reports in 2024 to 10 in 2025, according to HUPD’s report.

The number of reported rapes at Harvard saw an uptick from last year, from seven reports to 12 in 2025. But the number of reports remains lower than that of 2023, when HUPD documented 17 reported rape cases. The number of stalking incidents logged by HUPD is also trending upwards, from four in 2023 to 13 in 2025.

The most common reported incident, motor vehicle theft — which includes scooters and bikes — has declined over the last two years, falling from 175 reports to HUPD in 2024 to 112 in 2025.

HUPD is required to release an annual security report under the Clery Act, which was passed in 1990. The report excludes crimes like simple assaults and theft unless they are deemed hate crimes.

But this year’s report added a new section addressing “Hazing Prevention and Response Information.” Previous renditions of the report have not directly mentioned hazing, but the Stop Campus Hazing Act, an amendment to the Clery Act passed in December 2024, mandated schools to outline hazing policies in their annual security reports.

In the report, the University defines hazing as “any intentional, knowing, or reckless act committed by a person (whether individually or in concert with other persons) against another person or persons regardless of the willingness of such other person or persons to participate.” The report also outlines how to report hazing on campus, and hazing prevention efforts it has taken, like mandating student organization leaders to attend a semesterly hazing prevention training.

The other defining change in this year’s report is an introduction from Harvard’s police Chief Anthony Campbell, who took the helm of the department in January. In his note, Campbell called campus safety “a vocation,” and emphasized fostering a department that is “truly part of the community it serves,” built through relationships with the affiliates it serves.

Campbell’s note in opening the report is one of the only public statements he has made since taking over as head of department.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.