Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit demanding Harvard admissions data

By MARK ARSENAULT

A federal judge earlier this week granted Harvard University’s motion to dismiss a Trump administration lawsuit that sought to force the school to turn over admissions documents for a government discrimination investigation.

The administration sued Harvard in February, accusing the university of trying to stymie a federal review of the school’s admissions procedures by withholding documents that the government wanted — among them, application essays written by individual students.

Harvard “slow-walked the pace of production” of documents and refused to provide other materials related to applicant-level admissions decisions, the administration said in its suit.

A federal district judge in Boston, Myong J. Joun, wrote that the administration had not cleared procedural hurdles to justify a court order for the documents.

“The ruling does not determine whether Harvard has discriminated, whether the agencies may lawfully seek appropriately defined applicant-level data, or whether Harvard may ultimately be required to provide such data,” the judge wrote in a highly technical decision.

The university, in court filings, said the administration’s document demands went too far. The school portrayed the lawsuit as “part of the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign against Harvard” to try to force it into negotiations on administration priorities. The school has said that it has complied with federal law in its admissions processes.

A Justice Department spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, said by email that the court had dismissed the lawsuit on narrow procedural grounds and “invited the United States to amend” its complaint. “We will do exactly that.”

“Nothing in the ruling changes the core problem: Harvard continues to refuse to provide the admissions information it is required to produce,” Pels said.

Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Harvard has lasted over a year. Since the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term, officials have taken aim at Harvard over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students, its handling of diversity in admissions decisions and even its connections to China.

The government has tried to force Harvard into submission using a number of levers, included cutting off the school’s federal research grants and denying it the ability to host international students. Harvard successfully blocked those moves through court rulings, though appeals are pending.

The dispute over Harvard’s admissions documents began in April last year, when the Trump administration started a compliance review of the university’s undergraduate program and medical and law schools. The administration has said that it began the review to determine whether the university was following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in a groundbreaking legal case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

In that case, the high court said that race-based affirmative action in admissions was unconstitutional, although it allowed for some limited considerations of race — for example, if students wrote about an experience of discrimination in an essay.

The Education Department asked Harvard to certify that it did “not use race as a factor in making admissions decisions” or in awarding any scholarships of financial assistance, according to the government’s complaint.

Since the Supreme Court case was decided, enrollment of Asian Americans has risen at Harvard, while the proportion of Black students in incoming classes has fallen steeply. About 43% of incoming freshmen this fall identified as Asian American, while Black students accounted for about 9.3%, roughly half their share three years ago.

To verify Harvard was within the law, the administration asked the school to turn over “all admissions data for the past five academic years, including applicant test scores (SAT/ACT), GPA, extracurricular activities, essays and admission outcomes, disaggregated by race and ethnicity,” the administration’s complaint said.