Judge Dismisses Justice Department Lawsuit Seeking Harvard Admissions Records
A federal judge in Massachusetts dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking individual applicant records from Harvard University on Monday, November 2, 2026. Judge Myoung J. Joun granted Harvard's request to dismiss the case, The Guardian reported.
The ruling was procedural. It did not decide whether Harvard's admissions practices were lawful. According to the court, the Justice Department had not shown that it took the necessary steps to seek voluntary compliance, meaning a request for the records made without a court order, before asking a judge to enforce its demand.
The Justice Department filed the suit in February 2026. The administration said it sought the Harvard records to make sure the university had stopped using affirmative action, the practice of giving some weight to race in admissions, which the U.S. Supreme Court restricted in 2023. The court also found that the Department of Education had not followed the proper procedural steps before folding its own admissions investigation into the Justice Department case.
The records fight came amid data Harvard itself released. Black student enrollment fell to 9.3 percent for the class of 2030, down from 18 percent for the class of 2027, and it has declined for a third straight year. Harvard said it had provided more than 2,000 pages of documents to the government without disclosing individual applicants' personal records.
The same judge dismissed a separate Trump administration lawsuit against Harvard in August 2026, which concerned allegations of antisemitism on campus. The admissions case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts under the caption United States v. Harvard. Harvard's federal lawsuits page lists the case status as "Motion to Dismiss Granted."
The dismissal does not end the broader dispute between the university and the federal government, and the ruling leaves open whether the Justice Department could refile its request after making the steps the court described.
