Trump DOJ sues Harvard for withholding race-related admissions docs

In the complaint, the government says it opened compliance reviews in April 2025 covering Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Law School to assess whether the university continues to discriminate on the basis of race in admissions in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI bars race, color, and national-origin discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance.

“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 accompanying the filing. She added that Harvard has not provided the data the government requested and said the department would continue pushing for “merit over DEI across America.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, said the department would not allow universities to refuse to provide the information required for federal review, calling cooperation “a basic expectation of any credible compliance process.” Dhillon said Harvard’s refusal to share data raises concerns and argued that if the university is complying with the law, “it should happily share the data necessary to prove it.”

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, accuses Harvard of repeatedly delaying and narrowing its responses to federal requests. According to the complaint, the Justice Department sought documents and data it says are necessary to evaluate Harvard’s compliance with Title VI, including applicant-level admissions data and materials related to admissions policies and communications involving race, ethnicity, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the Students for Fair Admissions litigation.

The government alleges Harvard failed to provide the individualized admissions data it requested, even after multiple rounds of correspondence and deadline extensions. The complaint describes initial document productions in May 2025 that it says largely consisted of publicly available materials and aggregated statistics rather than the applicant-level information the department says is required for its review.

By September 2025, the Justice Department sent follow-up letters to Harvard describing in greater detail the type of searchable electronic spreadsheet it wanted—data points that, according to the complaint, include applicants’ race and ethnicity and other academic and evaluative indicators used in admissions decisions. The department says Harvard missed subsequent deadlines and has not produced additional admissions-related documents since May 2025.

The complaint ties Harvard’s obligations to both federal civil rights regulations and the terms of federal financial assistance the university receives from the Justice Department. The filing points to a Justice Department grant to Harvard, described as a funding award for a project evaluating housing models for victims of human trafficking, and argues that as a recipient of DOJ funding, Harvard agreed to comply with Title VI regulations, including requirements to provide timely compliance reports and permit access to pertinent records during compliance reviews.

The government’s lawsuit asserts two primary legal claims: first, that Harvard violated Title VI’s implementing regulations by failing to provide timely, complete productions or access to applicant-level admissions data; and second, that Harvard breached a material term of the DOJ grant agreement by not cooperating with the compliance review process.

While the complaint references the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision involving Harvard’s undergraduate admissions, the Justice Department emphasized that this new lawsuit is narrower in scope and only seeks to compel the IVY League school to produce documents related to any consideration of race in admissions and does not accuse Harvard of racial discrimination.