By Jan Wolfe and Susan Heavey
Feb 13 (Reuters) – The Trump administration filed a new lawsuit on Friday against Harvard University, accusing it of failing to comply with a federal investigation, and seeking documents related to its admissions process.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Boston, U.S. Justice Department lawyers said the documents requested will help assess whether Harvard is complying with a 2023 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that determined race-conscious college admissions programs are unconstitutional.
The Justice Department said it brought the lawsuit “solely to compel Harvard to produce documents relating to any consideration of race in admission” and “does not accuse Harvard of any discriminatory conduct, nor does it seek monetary damages or the revocation of federal funding.”
Harvard representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this month that his administration was seeking $1 billion from Harvard to settle probes into school policies, after a news report that said Trump had dropped his demand for a payment from the Ivy League school.
Harvard has been a central focus of the administration’s broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at U.S. universities, which Trump says are gripped by antisemitic and “radical left” ideologies.
The administration canceled hundreds of grants awarded to Harvard researchers on the grounds the school failed to do enough to address harassment of Jewish students on its campus, prompting Harvard to sue.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto;, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama Editing by David Ljunggren and Noeleen Walder)
