Identity of Speakers
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n/a
Student
Other
Resources
Additional Information
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Incident Nature:
Lawsuit
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Incident Political Orientation:
Not Clear -
Incident Responses:
Litigation
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Incident Status:
In litigation Federal District Court
- Did not involve Speech Codes
Summary
On February 13, 2026, the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Harvard University in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging that Harvard “thwarted” and “slow walked” a federal civil rights investigation by refusing to provide requested applicant-level admissions data. The complaint sought injunctive relief ordering Harvard to produce individualized admissions records and to comply with future requests, stating that “the repeatedly extended deadlines for document production have long passed.”
The Department stated that it initiated a compliance review in April 2025 to determine whether Harvard was complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision prohibiting the consideration of race in college admissions. According to the complaint, the Department requested five years of admissions data, including grades, standardized test scores, essays, extracurricular activities, admissions outcomes, and information disaggregated by race and ethnicity from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Medical School. The DOJ said it needed the applicant-level data to evaluate whether race continues to influence admissions decisions in ways that could violate federal law. The Department alleged that although Harvard produced thousands of pages of documents in May 2025, the production “largely consisted of aggregated data and publicly available information” and did not include the applicant-level records requested.
Harvard stated that it had been cooperating with the review and was complying with the law and the Supreme Court’s decision, describing its responses as made “in good faith.” The university also argued that producing detailed applicant-level records could violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which restricts disclosure of student information that could identify applicants. The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages or termination of federal funding but asked the court to compel compliance with the Department’s document demands. The litigation proceeded amid broader disputes between the university and the Trump administration.
Those disputes intensified in early February 2026 during negotiations over federal investigations and potential penalties. President Donald J. Trump privately told negotiators he was willing to drop his demand for a $200 million payment from Harvard to the government if that would secure an agreement to end his pressure campaign against the university. Later that night and into the early hours of February 4, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he would instead demand $1 billion “in damages” and threatened the school with a criminal investigation. Additionally, on February 6, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the Department of Defense would discontinue certain academic and fellowship programs with Harvard.
In a separate action, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against UCLA on February 24, 2026, alleging that the university allowed a hostile work environment to develop against Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff.
