A federal district court judge on Monday dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking individual applicant records from Harvard, ruling that the government had not met the procedural requirements for bringing the case. Judge Myoung J. Joun did not decide whether the administration was entitled to the records.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in February 2026 as part of a federal civil rights review. It alleged that Harvard had delayed and failed to meet deadlines for responding to records requests, and sought information to ensure the university had stopped using affirmative action in admissions.
Joun granted Harvard’s request to dismiss the case, finding that the government had not demonstrated it took the necessary steps to obtain voluntary compliance before seeking judicial enforcement. He also found that the Department of Education had not followed proper procedures before folding its admissions investigation into the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
In his opinion, Joun wrote that setting a deadline and threatening to sue do not, by themselves, establish compliance with the voluntary-compliance process when an agency seeks to enforce disputed demands for extensive information.
Harvard has said it provided more than 2,000 pages of documents but did not disclose personal applicant records, which it considers privileged. The university’s lawyers argued that the administration had ended negotiations prematurely in favor of a retaliatory campaign against Harvard.
The dismissal follows Harvard’s release last week of admissions data showing that the share of Black students in the class of 2030 was 9.3%, down from 18% in the class of 2027 and marking a third consecutive annual decline. In August 2026, Joun also dismissed the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit against the university.
Sources: The Guardian World.