Trump administration sues Harvard over admissions records
The Justice Department filed suit Friday demanding Harvard disclose documents to determine whether the university is complying with a 2023 Supreme Court ban on race-based admissions.
16 hrs ago
The Trump administration sued Harvard University on Friday, accusing the institution of failing to comply with a federal civil rights investigation into its admissions practices.
The Department of Justice filed the lawsuit in Boston federal court, seeking documents related to whether Harvard has considered race in its admissions process for undergraduate, law, and medical school programs. The suit follows a 2023 Supreme Court decision that prohibited the consideration of race in university admissions.
"Harvard has not revealed the information we need to ensure that its admissions are free from discrimination," said Justice Secretary Pam Bondi in a statement.
The investigation began in April to determine whether Harvard's admissions process complies with the Supreme Court ruling. According to the Justice Department filing, "at every turn, Harvard has thwarted the Department's efforts to investigate potential discrimination," including by slow-walking document production and refusing to provide records relating to applicant-level admissions decisions.
The Justice Department stated that the lawsuit "seeks only to compel Harvard to produce documents related to any consideration of race in admissions and does not accuse Harvard of racial discrimination." The department said it is not seeking monetary damages or the revocation of federal funding through this action.
Deputy Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a press release: "If Harvard has ceased discriminating, it should willingly share the information necessary to demonstrate that. Providing requested data is a basic expectation of any credible compliance process."
Harvard responded to the lawsuit in a statement, saying it had been "responding to the government's inquiries in good faith and continues to be willing to engage with the government according to the process required by law." The university also stated it "refused to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights in response to unlawful government overreach."
The lawsuit represents the latest escalation in the Trump administration's conflict with Harvard. Earlier this month, Trump said his administration was seeking $1 billion from Harvard to settle probes into school policies. The administration has also threatened to withhold federal funding from Harvard and other universities over issues including pro-Palestinian protests, campus diversity initiatives, and transgender policies.
The 2023 Supreme Court decision found that Harvard had violated federal civil rights law in its admissions process, using what the court characterized as "racial balancing" to reduce the number of Asian American applicants accepted to the university.