WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is suing Harvard University for allegedly withholding records that would determine whether the Ivy League institution is still practicing racial discrimination in admissions.

The US Supreme Court found in June 2023 that Harvard had run afoul of federal civil rights law in determining which undergrads to admit, using “racial balancing” to reduce the number of Asian Americans accepted at the storied institution.

The suit, filed Friday in Boston 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.”

“Harvard is committed to following the law, including civil rights laws in connection with admissions and financial aid, and Harvard has complied with and continues to comply with the law under the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) decision,” a university spokesperson said in a 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,” the rep added.

“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.”

“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 announcing the lawsuit.

“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 high court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard outlawed overt racial consideration in higher education admissions, finding the practice in violation of both the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights law.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly held, applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality’—it is ‘universal in [its] application.’”

Since then, Harvard has maintained that its admissions staff — known as “readers” — don’t access information about applicants’ race or ethnicity until an admissions cycle has concluded, has tweaked essay questions that focused on identities rather than student contributions and reinstituted the requirement for applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores for consideration.

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 Feb. 3.

“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 — though she noted in her decision that the university had been “plagued by antisemitism.” 

The Trump administration appealed that ruling in December.

Trump, the DOJ, and the US Department of Education had all pushed for the Ivy League to crack down on antisemitism 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 Pam 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.”