Harvard suffers another blow as country's top law journal moves into the spotlight after damning exposé

Daily Mail​

29-04-2025

The Trump administration is once again investigating Harvard University - this time over claims of racial discrimination at its storied Harvard Law Review.
President Donald Trump has already gone after the Ivy League for rejecting demands to reform its hiring, admissions, and teaching practices in order to help fight antisemitism on campus. He also pulled funding for health research.
Now, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services are also investigating the school and its relation with the Harvard Law Review, they announced on Monday.
The probes will focus on Harvard Law Review's policies and practices surrounding its membership and article selection to determine whether it is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - which bars recipients of federal financial assistance 'from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin in the recipients' programs or activities.'
The announcement comes just three days after The Washington Free Beacon published an article under the headline 'Exclusive: Internal Documents Reveal Pervasive Pattern of Racial Discrimination at Harvard Law Review.'
The exposé cited leaked memos and Slack messages it said went back more than four years, which it says 'reveal a pattern of pervasive race discrimination at the nation's top law journal and threaten to plunge Harvard, already at war with the federal government, into even deeper crisis.'
The article claimed that 'just over half of journal members... are admitted solely based on academic performance.
'The rest are chosen by a "holistic review committee" that has made the inclusion of "underrepresented groups" - defined to include race, gender, identity and sexual orientation it's "first priority,"' The Free Beacon reports, citing a 2021 resolution.
It also claimed the Law Review 'incorporated race into nearly every stage of its article selection process' and that 'editors routinely kill or advance pieces based in part on the race of the author.'
Spokespersons from both the Department of Education and Health and Human Services cited these claims in a joint statement announcing the investigation on Monday.
They even quoted a Law Review editor from the article, who said it was 'concerning' that 'four of the five people' who wanted to reply to an article about police reform 'are white men.'
The spokespersons also quoted another line in the article, which said that a different editor 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,' Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor 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. 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,' he added.
But a spokesperson for Harvard Law noted that a similar claim was dismissed in 2018 by a federal court judge.
A spokesperson for Harvard Law said in a statement that a similar claim was dismissed in 2018 by a federal court.
The announcement comes just three days after The Washington Free Beacon published an article citing leaked memos and Slack messages it said went back more than four years, which it says 'reveal a pattern of pervasive race discrimination at the nation's top law journal'
In that case, a group called Faculty, Alumni and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences sued the Law Review, the Harvard Law School and the Fellows of Harvard College, alleging the Law Review violated the requirements of Title VI and Title IX by 'using race and sex preferences to select its members.'
A federal court judge, however, found that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing and had failed to state a claim.
'Harvard Law 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,' said Jeff Neal.
'The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization that is legally independent from the law school.'
Students make all of the organizational decisions and its members are all second- and third-year Harvard Law students, according to Politico.
The investigations come as Harvard fights a freeze on $2.2 billion in federal grants that Trump imposed after the university refused to comply with its demands.
White House officials had sent the university a letter earlier this month calling for the elite school 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 following contentious anti-Israel protests.
But when Harvard officials sent back a message saying it would not comply with the Trump administration's demands, the Department of Education's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced the freeze of multi-year grants and $60million in multi-year contract value to Harvard.
It said that the school is not taking the problem of campus antisemitism seriously and must 'commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.'
Soon after, President Trump also announced he would be pulling an additional $1 billion of the school's funding for health research.
Harvard officials are now suing the Trump administration in a desperate attempt to reverse the funding freeze, which it said was 'arbitrary and capricious' and violated its First Amendment rights.
'The Government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen,' the lawsuit, filed in Boston federal court, stated.
The research which is now at risk 'aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation.'
Lawyers representing Harvard noted the government has not acknowledged 'the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard's research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress.'
Monday marked the first time both sides met in court over the funding fight.
But it seemed the Ivy League was starting to bow to the Trump administration's demands as it announced it would rename its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging to the Office of Community and Campus Life, the Harvard Crimson reports.
The change was announced in a Monday afternoon email from Sherri A Charleston, who was previously Harvard's chief diversity officer but is now the university's chief community and campus life officer.
'In the weeks and months ahead, we will take steps to make this change concrete and work with all of Harvard's schools and units to implement these vital objectives, including shared efforts to reexamine and reshape the missions and programs of officers across the university,' she said.