By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit seeking to force Harvard University to turn over records for an investigation into whether the Ivy League school’s hiring practices are discriminatory, particularly against white men.
The EEOC filed the lawsuit in Boston federal court late on Tuesday after the commission’s Republican chair, Andrea Lucas, filed a charge last year accusing Harvard of engaging in systemic discrimination on the basis of race and sex.
She did so as President Donald Trump’s administration launched a broad campaign against the nation’s richest and oldest university. Harvard has contended it is being retaliated against for refusing demands to overhaul its hiring and academic programs to align with the Republican president’s agenda.
Lucas alleged that since 2018, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard engaged in a pattern of discriminating against white, Asian, male or straight employees and job applicants in order to achieve what the school said was the “demographic diversification of the faculty.”
The EEOC under Lucas has been focused on scrutinizing diversity, equity and inclusion programs at companies and institutions. In Harvard’s case, she charged that the school adopted a series of programs that resulted in growth of faculty employment in every demographic group since 2013 except white men.
She cited materials from the university’s website that had since been removed showing that the share of white men among tenured faculty fell from 64% in 2013 to 56% in 2023.
The EEOC said that while Harvard had produced some records, it had resisted turning over a broad series of categories of documents, including data concerning all applicants for faculty positions since 2018.
The agency asked a judge to order Harvard to comply with its subpoena, which the EEOC said was part of a valid investigation into whether Harvard engaged in discriminatory practices in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Harvard in a statement said it hires and promotes faculty based on merit and their qualifications, not race or sex, and would defend itself against what it called “illegal government overreach.”
In an exhibit included with the lawsuit, Harvard’s lawyers argued the agency “is not engaged in a good-faith investigation but rather is part of the whole-of-government retaliation against Harvard.”
The university has already secured rulings from other judges rejecting the administration’s efforts to terminate over $2 billion in grants, block the school from hosting international students and sue it for allegedly failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.
A federal judge during a Friday hearing appeared skeptical of a separate lawsuit the US Department of Justice filed seeking to force Harvard to turn over records for an investigation into the extent to which it considers race in its student admissions.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in BostonEditing by Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio)
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