Harvard filed its formal response to the federal government’s lawsuit demand for admissions data on April 14, claiming that the complaint represents “another page from the year-long retaliatory Government playbook,” brought “to make an example of Harvard and generate headlines.”
The U.S. Department of Justice’s suit, filed on February 13, alleges that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to comply with a federal investigation into whether its admissions practices meet the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which barred the consideration of race in admissions. Federal officials contend that the University did not adequately respond to requests for information tied to that inquiry.
Harvard’s answer rebuts the complaint point by point, arguing that it is legally deficient on regulatory, procedural, and constitutional grounds. “This lawsuit,” the filing states, “is based on improper motives and flouts the procedures required under Title VI.” Rather than advancing a routine enforcement action, it continues, the case seeks to “transform routine negotiations over administrative document productions into an inappropriate and ill-conceived Title VI case.”
In responding to the admissions investigation, Harvard says, the University produced extensive materials—more than 2,000 pages in May 2025 alone, including admissions policies, training materials, and aggregate demographic data—which it contends demonstrate compliance with Students for Fair Admissions. Following the Court’s decision, Harvard states, it revised policies, retrained admissions staff, and implemented safeguards to ensure that “the fact of an applicant’s race is not permitted to be considered in admissions decisions.”
The University agreed that it had not provided the government with certain individualized applicant materials, such as personal essays, describing them as “private and sensitive” and “unnecessary and sought for an improper purpose.” Such materials, Harvard argues, fall outside what the government is “entitled to obtain” under Title VI and its implementing regulations.
The filing also contends that the government failed to follow required procedures before initiating litigation. According to Harvard, negotiations with the Justice Department continued into the early days of the federal government shutdown in fall of 2025, with assurances that discussions would resume once funding was restored. That outreach, the University says, never came; months later, the government filed suit. “The Department’s abrupt decision to choose litigation over negotiation,” the filing states, “violates both the requirements of Title VI and Department regulations.”
A year ago, the conflict between the government and Harvard became national news when President Alan M. Garber rejected a series of demands outlined in an April 11, 2025 letter from the Trump administration. That letter, signed by representatives of the General Services Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education, demanded federal oversight of Harvard’s hiring and admissions practices and student discipline, along with changes to the University governance structure and quarterly reports to the government.
Harvard publicly rejected those demands, stating that it “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
Harvard’s latest filing reports that a second letter delivered on the same day “explicitly conditioned [Harvard’s] federal funding on [the University] surrender[ing] its First Amendment freedoms.” The University asserts that the letter is evidence that the government’s latest investigation and lawsuit were undertaken “for improper and unlawful purposes in violation of [Harvard’s] constitutional rights.”
The filing also cites a Wall Street Journal interview with Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, in which she acknowledges singling out Harvard as a target as “bang for the buck,” because the University is “disproportionately influential and global” as well as “defiant.”
