Donald Trump admin launches race-based discrimination probe against Harvard Law Review

The Harvard University campus in Cambridge. FILE PIC/AP

The Trump administration on Monday announced federal officials are launching investigations into Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review, saying authorities have received reports of race-based discrimination "permeating the operations" of the journal.

The investigations come as Harvard fights a freeze on USD 2.2 billion in federal grants the Trump administration imposed after the university refused to comply with demands to limit activism on campus. A letter sent to the university earlier this month called for the institution to clarify its campus speech policies that limit the time, place and manner of protests and other activities. It also demanded academic departments at Harvard that "fuel antisemitic harassment" be reviewed and changed to address bias and improve viewpoint diversity.

Monday marked the first time that both sides met in court over the funding fight. The investigations by the US Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services were announced separately on Monday, with authorities saying they were investigating policies and practices involving the journal's membership and article selection that they argue may violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

According to the federal government, the editor of the Harvard Law Review reportedly wrote that it was "concerning" that the majority of the people who had wanted to reply to an article about police reform "are white men". A separate editor allegedly suggested "that a piece should be subject to expedited review because the author was a minority".

"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 statement. "Title VI's demands are clear: recipients of federal financial assistance may not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, or national origin. No institution -- no matter its pedigree, prestige, or wealth -- is above the law."

An email seeking comment was sent on Monday to a spokesperson for Harvard. Harvard is among multiple universities across the country where pro-Palestinian protests erupted on campus amid the war in Gaza last year. Republican officials have since heavily scrutinised those universities, and several Ivy League presidents testified before Congress to discuss antisemitism allegations. The Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution was the fifth Ivy League school targeted in a pressure campaign by the administration, which also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, and Princeton universities to force compliance with its agenda.

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