The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has opened two new investigations into Harvard University over allegations of discrimination tied to admissions practices and campus conditions.
The department is reviewing whether Harvard continues to use race-based preferences in admissions despite the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which found such practices unlawful.
A second inquiry will focus on allegations of antisemitic harassment and whether the university failed to protect Jewish students.
The department also issued a letter of impending enforcement action. The letter states that Harvard has not provided requested admissions data needed to assess compliance with federal civil rights law.
Harvard has 20 days to respond or face potential enforcement measures, including referral to the Department of Justice.
"Harvard University should know better," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. "Its name will always be tied to the landmark Supreme Court case that found sweeping racial discrimination in admissions and the campus has been in the spotlight for tolerating egregious antisemitic harassment for years now."
The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights "will investigate these complaints thoroughly," McMahon said, adding, "No one — not even Harvard — is above the law."
"If Harvard continues to stonewall as we try to verify its basic compliance with antidiscrimination statutes, we will vigorously hold them to account to ensure students' rights are protected," she said.
The department said Harvard's failure to provide information may violate federal regulations requiring institutions that receive federal funding to cooperate with civil rights investigations.
The Supreme Court's decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard determined that race-based admissions policies violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Separately, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Friday in federal court in Massachusetts alleging Harvard failed to address antisemitism on campus.
The lawsuit argues that those failures could justify freezing federal grants and seeking repayment of funds already distributed.
"The United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures and brings this action to compel Harvard to comply" with federal civil rights law, the department wrote, adding it is seeking to recover "billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution."
The legal action marks another escalation in a dispute between the Trump administration and Harvard over campus policies and federal oversight.
The university posted a short response to the Friday lawsuit on its Facebook account saying, "We will defend the University against this lawsuit, which represents yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government."
Jim Mishler ✉
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