The Justice Department sued Harvard University on Friday, accusing the Ivy League school of withholding admissions data needed to show it is complying with the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in college admissions.
“The Justice Department will not allow universities to flout our nation’s federal civil rights laws by refusing to provide the information required for our review,” assistant attorney general Harmeet K. Dhillon said. “Providing requested data is a basic expectation of any credible compliance process, and refusal to cooperate creates concerns about university practices.
“If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it,” Dhillon added.
The suit alleges that Harvard stonewalled DOJ efforts to obtain race-related information, including admissions policies, correspondence related to race, ethnicity, and DEI, and individualized applicant admissions data. The DOJ also accused Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for allegedly failing to comply with the department’s requests.
The Trump administration has ramped up enforcement of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. In August, the administration said it would start demanding a wider range of race-based admissions data, and indicated that it would crack down on “hidden racial proxies,” like diversity statements that schools used to skirt the ban.
Harvard in October reported that the enrollment of Asian students grew in 2025 while the percentage of black and Hispanic students dropped.
Asian enrollment increased to 41 percent from 37 percent, and the percentage of black freshmen dropped from 14 percent to 11.5 percent. Before the Supreme Court’s decision, 18 percent of Harvard’s freshmen were black. Hispanic enrollment decreased by 5 points in 2025, down to 11 percent. The share of white students was not included in the data.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice is demanding better from our nation’s educational institutions,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday. “Harvard has failed to disclose the data we need to ensure that its admissions are free of discrimination—we will continue fighting to put merit over DEI across America.”
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