Xinhua News Agency, Washington, February 13 (Reporter Yang Ling and Xiong Maoling) The U.S. Department of Justice launched a new civil lawsuit against Harvard University on the 13th, accusing the well-known university of failing to cooperate with a federal investigation and requiring Harvard to provide data related to enrollment.
According to the indictment filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the Justice Department accused Harvard of "illegally" withholding "necessary information" from the Justice Department by refusing to provide documents needed for the investigation.
The Justice Department said that the Federal Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that Harvard violated relevant laws by considering race in undergraduate admissions. The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Harvard's undergraduate, law school and medical school admissions procedures in April 2025. However, Harvard has delayed the submission of documents and refused to provide necessary documents related to admission decisions. The most recent submission of admissions-related documents was in May 2025.
Harvard has maintained that it has complied with the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling. Harvard has not yet commented on the latest lawsuit from the Justice Department.
The Justice Department said in a statement that it filed the civil lawsuit "for the sole purpose" of compelling Harvard to provide documents related to race in its admissions process. “In this lawsuit, the U.S. government does not accuse Harvard of any discrimination, nor does it seek monetary damages or the revocation of federal funding.”
U.S. President Trump posted on social media on February 2 that the U.S. government is seeking $1 billion in "compensation" from Harvard and hopes to have "no more involvement" with Harvard in the future.
Since Trump returned to the White House last year, he has repeatedly accused Harvard and other universities of so-called "anti-Semitism" and demanded that these universities "rectify" or else they will cut or cut off funding from the federal government. The federal government announced in April last year that it would freeze billions of dollars in federal research funding to Harvard. Harvard filed a lawsuit over this, and the lawsuit is still ongoing.
