WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is suing Harvard University for allegedly withholding records that would determine whether the liberal Ivy League institution is continuing to discriminate on the basis of race in the admissions process.
The US Supreme Court nearly three years ago found that Harvard had run afoul of federal civil rights law in its undergraduate admissions, using “racial balancing” to reduce the number of Asian Americans accepted at storied institution.
The suit, filed Friday in Massachusetts federal court, claimed that “at every turn, Harvard has thwarted the Department’s efforts to investigate potential discrimination.”
“It has slow-walked the pace of production and refused to provide pertinent documents relating to applicant-level admissions decisions,” the 14-page filing stated.
“Harvard made its most recent production of admissions-related documents in May 2025. The repeatedly extended deadlines for document production have long passed.”
Reps for Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“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,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement.
“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.”
The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard declared: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division initiated an investigation of the Cambridge, Mass., school in April 2025 to determine whether its admissions were in compliance with the high court’s decision and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
Prosecutors are not outright alleging “any discriminatory conduct” in the suit, nor does it “seek monetary damages or the revocation of federal funding.”
Earlier this month, however, President Trump said his administration was seeking up to $1 billion in fines from Harvard to settle ongoing federal probes.
“They wanted to do a convoluted job training concept, but it was turned down in that it was wholly inadequate and would not have been, in our opinion, successful,” he posted on his Truth Social.
“It was merely a way of Harvard getting out of a large cash settlement of more than 500 Million Dollars, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed.”
The president had previously been asking for about half that sum to be paid toward the operation of trade schools — in exchange for unfreezing $2.7 billion in research funding and other government grants to the institution.
A Boston federal judge found in September that the Trump administration “impermissibly retaliated against Harvard for refusing to capitulate to the government’s demands” by withholding the federal funding.
Trump, the DOJ and the US Department of Education had all pushed for the Ivy League to crack down on anti-semitism on campus and eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in its programs, hiring and admissions.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice is demanding better from our nation’s educational institutions,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement Friday.
“Harvard has failed to disclose the data we need to ensure that its admissions are free of discrimination — we will continue fighting to put merit over DEI across America.”
US District Judge Allison Burroughs in her decision noted that the university had been “plagued by antisemitism.” The Trump administration appealed the ruling last December.
