The Trump administration announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into alleged discriminatory practices at Harvard University’s vaunted law journal.
The Title VI investigation is being conducted by the civil rights offices of both the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The offices are probing reports that Harvard Law Review uses “race-based criteria” in lieu of “merit-based standards” in its journal membership and article selection process.
“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,” Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
“Title VI’s demands are clear: recipients of federal financial assistance may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin,” Trainor added. “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 Trump administration referenced remarks reportedly made by Harvard Law Review editors in a private Slack group in 2024, as they debated who should be allowed to respond to an article about police reform.
“Four of the five people raised in this message are white men, which I find concerning,” one editor wrote, according to the Washington Free Beacon. “Having read the article pretty thoroughly, I think a huge missing piece was that of how race fits into policing and misconduct.”
In a separate discussion, a Harvard Law Review editor reportedly suggested that a submission from a minority author should benefit from expedited review.
“POC author,” the editor wrote. “We should send for [review] tonight if we want to move on this.”
A spokesperson for Harvard Law School told The Post 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.”
“The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization that is legally independent from the law school,” the spokesperson added, noting that a 2018 discrimination claim was dismissed by a federal court.
The Trump administration contends that the “allocation of opportunities or recognition based on race can deprive other students of educational opportunities to which they would be entitled by merit, which is unacceptable for recipients of federal funding.”
“Law journal membership and publication are crucial achievements that build momentum for law students’ careers and shape legal scholarship,” Anthony Archeval, acting director of HHS Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement. “This investigation reflects the Administration’s common-sense understanding that these opportunities should be earned through merit-based standards and not race.”
The probe comes two weeks after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard over concerns about antisemitism on campus and the Ivy League school’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The university filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week, challenging the federal funding freeze.
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