DOJ Sues Harvard for Gradual-Strolling Data on Alleged Race-based Admissions

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The Justice Division sued Harvard College on Friday, accusing the Ivy League college of withholding data sought in a federal investigation into whether or not Harvard is complying with the Supreme Court docket’s ban on race-conscious admissions.

Filed in Massachusetts federal court docket, the swimsuit alleges that “at each flip, Harvard has thwarted the Division’s efforts to analyze potential discrimination,” claiming the college “has slow-walked the tempo of manufacturing and refused to supply pertinent paperwork regarding applicant-level admissions selections.”

Harvard “made its most up-to-date manufacturing of admissions-related paperwork in Might 2025,” the submitting states, including that prolonged deadlines for doc manufacturing have handed.

“The Justice Division is not going to permit universities to flout our nation’s federal civil rights legal guidelines by refusing to supply the knowledge required for our evaluation,” Assistant Lawyer Basic Harmeet Okay. Dhillon of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division stated in a press release. “Offering requested knowledge is a primary expectation of any credible compliance course of, and refusal to cooperate creates issues about college practices. If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it ought to fortunately share the info essential to show it.”

The lawsuit follows the Supreme Court docket’s 2023 choice in College students for Honest Admissions v. Harvard, during which Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

The DOJ investigation into Harvard started in April 2025 to evaluate compliance with the Supreme Court docket’s choice and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The Justice Division emphasised that the brand new case is aimed toward compelling doc manufacturing — prosecutors should not outright alleging “any discriminatory conduct,” and the swimsuit doesn't search financial damages or the revocation of federal funding.

The submitting additionally lands amid a wider, escalating combat between the Trump administration and Harvard, together with Trump’s latest public point out of looking for as much as $1 billion in damages in talks tied to broader disputes.

BREAKING: The U.S. Division of Justice introduced a brand new lawsuit towards Harvard College, alleging that the Ivy League establishment illegally withheld admissions materials wanted to resolve whether or not the college is constant to discriminate within the admissions course of regardless of a 2023… pic.twitter.com/8x7mIZ4nVJ