Trump targets Harvard Law Review with racial-discrimination probe

The federal government launched a probe Monday into allegations of race-based discrimination at Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review, the latest salvo in the battle over wokeness between the Republican administration and the famously left-wing campus.

The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services said they are looking into whether the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination in education based on race, color or national origin.

The catalyst appeared to be a report last week in the conservative Washington Free Beacon that said internal emails over the past four years showed the law review used race as a key factor in selecting editors and articles.

“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor in a Monday statement.

For example, a memo dated Aug. 5, 2024, from an unidentified editor to Harvard’s Articles Team recommended rejecting an article on criminal law in part because “this author is not from an underrepresented background.” 

The article was not included in the issue.

“Title VI’s demands are clear: recipients of federal financial assistance may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin,” Mr. Trainor said. “No institution — no matter its pedigree, prestige, or wealth — is above the law. The Trump Administration will not allow Harvard, or any other recipients of federal funds, to trample on anyone’s civil rights.”

The student-run Harvard Law Review is independent of the law school, but the administration said that it would look into their financial relationship as well as the university’s oversight.

“Law journal membership and publication are crucial achievements that build momentum for law students’ careers and shape legal scholarship,” said Anthony Archeval, acting director of HHS Office for Civil Rights. “This investigation reflects the Administration’s common-sense understanding that these opportunities should be earned through merit-based standards and not race.”

Harvard Law School spokesperson Jeff Neal said in an email that the school is “committed to ensuring that the programs and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations.”

He emphasized that the review is “legally independent from the law school. A claim brought in 2018 was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.”

Harvard sued the Trump administration last week over its decision to freeze $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts in response to the university’s handling of rising campus antisemitism.

In an April 11 letter, the administration called on Harvard to commit to viewpoint diversity, eradicate DEI programs, and implement merit-based hiring and admissions, prompting Harvard President Alan Garber to accuse the government of seeking to “control whom we hire and what we teach.”

The Department of Education also sent a records request earlier this month to the university asking for more information about its foreign-funding disclosures, calling them “incomplete and inaccurate.”