At Thursday’s hearing, Harvard opposed the Justice Department’s demand for applicant-level admissions data, saying it is too broad and threatens applicants’ privacy. DOJ says it needs the records to check compliance with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling; the judge has not ruled.
Former Biden White House counsel Stuart Delery represented Harvard at the hearing, alongside Joshua Levy and general counsel Jennifer O’Connor. The DOJ seeks applicants’ grades, test scores, race, admissions outcomes and internal evaluations, saying aggregate statistics are insufficient. It would accept anonymized records with names replaced by ID numbers. Harvard says it has provided more than 2,000 pages, including information on changes made after the ruling.
The DOJ sued in February to check whether Harvard still considers race in admissions after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs in 2023; the suit does not allege current discrimination. Harvard says the government failed to pursue required efforts to reach voluntary compliance before suing. The DOJ says it negotiated continually and Harvard refused the records. Judge Myong Joun questioned whether negotiations were sufficient, at one point calling the government’s approach an “ultimatum.”
