Federal judge dismisses lawsuit against Harvard over federal demand for admissions data

BOSTON (AP) — A national justice connected Monday dismissed a suit against Harvard University implicit its alleged nonaccomplishment to supply admissions records that the Justice Department had demanded to guarantee the Ivy League schoolhouse stopped utilizing affirmative enactment successful admissions.

The Justice Department said Harvard had “thwarted” efforts to analyse imaginable discrimination. It accused Harvard of refusing to comply with a national probe and asked a justice to bid the assemblage to crook implicit the records.

But U.S. District Judge Myong Joun concluded that the Justice Department didn't instrumentality the indispensable procedural steps to get the information earlier filing the lawsuit. “Before taking enforcement enactment nether the statutory framework, the bureau indispensable counsel the recipient of its nonaccomplishment to comply and find that compliance cannot beryllium secured by voluntary means,” Joun wrote.

But Joun besides said the ruling does not extremity the quality implicit the data.

“I determine a constricted question: whether the Government has adequately established, astatine this signifier and connected the materials decently considered, that it satisfied the prerequisites to judicial enforcement invoked successful this complaint,” helium wrote. “The ruling does not find whether Harvard has discriminated, whether the agencies whitethorn lawfully question appropriately defined applicant-level data, oregon whether Harvard whitethorn yet beryllium required to supply specified data.”

Neither Harvard nor the Department of Justice responded to a petition for comment.

The ruling is the latest setback against the Trump medication implicit its ongoing conflict with Harvard. It has suffered defeats successful the national courts implicit everything from billions of dollars successful backing cuts to a suit accusing the assemblage of antisemitism.

Trump officials person said they’re taking enactment against Harvard implicit allegations of anti-Jewish bias connected campus. Harvard officials accidental they’re facing unconstitutional retaliation for refusing to follow the administration’s ideological views.

In the combat implicit admissions data, the Justice Department successful 2025 launched a compliance reappraisal into Harvard’s admissions practices. It told Harvard to manus implicit 5 years of admissions information for applicants to its undergraduate, medial and instrumentality schools.

It besides asked Harvard for applicants’ grades, trial scores, essays, extracurricular activities and admissions outcomes, on with their contention and ethnicity.

Justice Department officials said they request the information to find whether Harvard has continued considering applicants’ contention successful admissions decisions. The Supreme Court barred affirmative enactment successful admissions successful 2023 aft lawsuits challenged it astatine Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

The effort against Harvard is portion of a broader run by the Trump medication against colleges accused of considering contention successful admissions decisions.

In October, the Justice Department recovered the instrumentality schoolhouse astatine the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered contention successful admissions. The announcement follows a akin uncovering against the university’s aesculapian school.

The medication besides has accused the UC Berkeley Law School and the aesculapian schoolhouse astatine the University of California, San Diego, of illegally discriminating against achromatic and Asian applicants.