DOJ Sues Harvard

The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Friday accusing Harvard University of failing to comply with a federal investigation into whether its admissions processes are discriminatory.

The federal government alleged in a court filing that the Ivy League university has unlawfully withheld “information necessary to determine whether Harvard, which has a recent history of racial discrimination, is continuing to discriminate in its admissions process.” The Trump administration alleged in the lawsuit that Harvard “has slow-walked the pace of [document] production and refused to provide pertinent documents relating to applicant-level admissions decisions.”

The Trump administration said in the filing that it brought legal action “solely to compel Harvard to produce documents relating to any consideration of race in admission” and is not accusing Harvard of discriminatory conduct, seeking monetary damages or the revocation of its federal funding.

“The Justice Department will not allow universities to flout our nation’s federal civil rights laws by refusing to provide the information required for our review,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a DOJ news release. “Providing requested data is a basic expectation of any credible compliance process, and refusal to cooperate creates concerns about university practices. If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it.”

A Harvard spokesperson denied claims of wrongdoing in an emailed statement.

“Harvard has 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,” they wrote to Inside Higher Ed. “The University will continue to defend itself against these retaliatory actions which have been initiated simply because Harvard refused to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights in response to unlawful government overreach.”

Friday’s lawsuit is the latest salvo from the Trump administration in a nearly yearlong fight with Harvard that has included efforts to cut off $2.2 billion in federal research funding and to prevent it from hosting international students. Harvard has managed to successfully fend off those efforts and sued the Trump administration last April. Harvard won that legal battle with the federal government last fall but remains in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, as the president and others have accused Harvard of permitting antisemitism, among other allegations.

Despite Harvard’s legal victory, rumors of a settlement have persisted for months. Any such deal would follow similar agreements struck with the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Virginia, Cornell University and Northwestern University. 

However, while a deal has supposedly been in the works for months, Harvard reportedly has been resistant to pay a fine as part of any such settlement. Earlier this month The New York Times reported that the federal government had dropped its request for a fine as part of the settlement, only to be immediately countered by Trump, who demanded Harvard pay $1 billion.