Are we actually in a post-affirmative action era? One would hope, but that appears overly optimistic. This is going to be an uphill battle. Harvard and many other universities are definitely fighting it tooth and nail, and if our country is going to survive, we can’t give up the fight to end racist practices. The most recent lawsuit filed by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division against Harvard is another step toward digging ourselves out of the DEI pit we’re mired in.

The civil action brought against the school does not accuse it of racial discrimination, but rather of failing to comply with an order to provide admissions data to verify that it is not discriminating in its admissions process. As Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon accurately observes, “If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it.”

Seems pretty straightforward and should be easy to accommodate, but Harvard isn’t having any of it. Administrators have been dragging their feet on the process for 10 months after the initial April 2025 request. The order for documents sought to determine whether Harvard is circumventing the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard, which was intended to end race-based admissions. The DOJ launched “compliance reviews” of Harvard’s undergraduate, law, and medical schools, requesting five years of applicant-level data — including test scores (SAT, ACT, MCAT, and LSAT), GPAs, extracurriculars, and essays. The university has handed over 2,000 pages of documents, but most were already publicly available, such as financial aid brochures and compiled statistics, and did not include any applicant-level information.

Harvard missed two extension deadlines, forcing the DOJ’s hand. Taking action on February 13, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced, “Harvard has failed to disclose the data we need to ensure that its admissions are free of discrimination — we will continue fighting to put merit over DEI across America.”

Dhillon added, “The Justice Department will not allow universities to flout our nation’s federal civil rights laws by refusing to provide the information required for our review.”

The suit alleges that Harvard is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for failing to comply, and that the DOJ has the right to sue because of the federal funding Harvard receives. The Daily Wire elaborates, “The lawsuit highlights the unique position of Harvard as the world’s wealthiest university, boasting a $56.9 billion endowment. Despite its vast private resources, the university remains subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because it receives significant federal funding. In 2024 alone, Harvard received $686 million in federal research grants; the DOJ notes that the university is currently slated to receive over $2.6 billion in total federal assistance.”

In the 2023 Supreme Court case alluded to above, Harvard was found to have a significant decrease in Asian American applicants admitted due to what the court called its use of race as a “pernicious stereotype.” Harvard has always been notoriously hard to get into, with only 4.2% of undergraduate applicants and 3.2% of medical school applicants accepted. The massive push for diversity, equity, and inclusion across the country, and especially in universities, made the chances of being accepted to Harvard even smaller for white and Asian students. “Harvard University’s president, vice president, provost, and 15 deans signed an email reaffirming the institution’s commitment to diversity on the day the Supreme Court decided Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard,” noted National Review. Hence, why the DOJ is investigating to ensure the “negative factors” in the school’s admissions process have been eradicated. “Specifically, the DOJ is seeking ‘searchable electronic spreadsheets’ that would allow investigators to compare the qualifications of admitted versus rejected students across different racial groups,” reported The Daily Wire.

Dhillon is right; if administrators are not discriminating, then they shouldn’t have any problems with transparency.

While Harvard began as a publicly funded institution, it privatized in the 1870s and later began accepting government-funded student financial aid and grants for various programs and research. With its billions in endowments, the university is certainly wealthy enough to provide its own financial aid and research grants without government assistance. If Harvard got off the government dole and went back to being a completely private institution, it wouldn’t have to worry about the DOJ suing. Or it could just obey the law.