Federal Judge Dismisses the Administration's Harvard Admissions-Probe Lawsuit
A Boston judge threw out the Justice Department's bid to force Harvard to hand over years of applicant-level admissions records - the latest courtroom loss in the White House's campaign against the university.
A federal judge in Boston on Monday dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit seeking to force Harvard University to turn over records for an investigation into whether the school continues to consider race in its admissions process, Reuters reported - another ruling against the administration in its long-running confrontation with the Ivy League university.
US District Judge Myong Joun rejected the Justice Department's case, which sought years of applicant-level admissions data - records Harvard said include sensitive information on thousands of high school students who applied. The administration argued the data is needed to determine whether Harvard is complying with the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling rejecting race-conscious admissions programs, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars racial discrimination in education programs that receive federal funds.
Harvard's lawyers argued the suit was retaliation: filed, they said, after the university refused demands to overhaul its governance, hiring and academic programs to align with the administration's agenda, and after the president announced in early February that he was ending settlement talks and wanted $1 billion in damages from the school. They also said the Justice Department sued without first taking the steps the law requires to seek voluntary compliance. Harvard has now secured a series of rulings against the administration - earlier decisions rejected efforts to terminate more than $2 billion of its grants and to block the university from hosting international students. The admissions-records fight, as of Monday night, belongs to Harvard as well.
