The feds are suing Harvard University for data related to allegations its hiring practices discriminate against white men — the latest step in the Trump administration’s crackdown on woke practices in academia.
In a lawsuit filed late Tuesday in a Massachusetts federal court, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accused the university of failing to comply with an investigation launched last year into what it called “systemic discrimination” against white, Asian, male and heterosexual workers.
In April 2025, Trump-appointed EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas filed a civil rights charge against Harvard, claiming its recruitment and promotion efforts violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employer discrimination.
“Subpoena enforcement actions are a routine part of the EEOC’s enforcement process,” agency spokesperson Amanda Smith told The Post, explaining the latest step in the case.
“Title VII gives the EEOC broad authority to obtain information necessary to investigate discrimination, including through court enforcement of its subpoenas.”
Harvard has argued the investigation is retaliatory and part of the Trump administration’s broader attempts to muzzle prestigious, left-leaning universities.
“The government has not concealed that its all-out campaign targets Harvard for the assertion of its constitutional rights,” the university’s lawyers wrote in a motion in June, adding that the case is “an attempt to get it to cave to the Administration’s ideological demands.”
Lucas’ charge against Harvard last year came days after the university filed its own lawsuit against the federal government, arguing its freeze of $2.2 billion in research funding was “unconstitutional,” the uni’s lawyers have noted.
A Harvard spokesperson said the university has been responding to the EEOC’s inquiries in good faith over the past year and it is prepared to continue defending itself against “illegal government overreach.”
“Harvard hires and promotes staff and faculty based on merit, qualifications and individual accomplishments, not on the basis of race, sex or any other protected status,” the spokesperson told The Post.
Lucas’ charge against Harvard cited since-deleted materials from the school’s website that showed the share of white men among tenured faculty had dropped to 56% in 2023 from 64% in 2013.
The share of “total women and faculty of color” on the tenure track had jumped to 68% from 54% over the same period.
White men in 2023 still outnumbered white women, men of color and women of color when counted separately, according to a graph on the site.
The storied Cambridge, Mass.-based university has faced backlash over allegations its diversity, equity and inclusion policies – which the Trump administration has targeted in several executive orders – went too far and discriminated against certain groups, particularly white men.
In December 2025, a history professor who worked at Harvard for 40 years torched the Ivy League institution over its “exclusion of white males” in a blistering essay announcing his retirement.
History professor James Hankins alleged several “perfect fit” candidates were sidelined for admissions in 2020 and 2021 in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests because they were white males, saying the one exception was a student who “had begun life as a female.”
In February, the Department of Justice sued Harvard University for the release of applicant data in a separate probe to determine whether the school has continued to consider race in its admissions process, after a 2023 Supreme Court ruling banned race-based admissions.
Harvard last month asked the federal judge in that case to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the government failed to follow proper procedure before suing the university.
In August, a federal judge in Boston dismissed a third lawsuit against Harvard, in which the DOJ accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students and staffers from antisemitism. The Trump administration has appealed the ruling.
Lucas has ramped up the EEOC’s efforts to crack down on what the administration calls illicit DEI practices at companies and higher-education institutions.
The agency has filed charges against The New York Times and Coca-Cola alleging discrimination, and investigated the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Barnard College over claims of antisemitism on campus.
It reached a record-breaking $221 million settlement with Columbia over allegations employees and student workers faced harassment due to their Jewish faith.
Lucas has opted to use commissioner’s charges to launch these probes. The charges simply require an EEOC commissioner to believe a law has been violated, as opposed to the more typical protocol of launching an investigation based on a complaint from an employee.