The Supreme Court put Harvard's name on the most important civil rights ruling in a generation.
Now the Trump administration is making sure that name means something.
Harvard just got hit with two new federal investigations – and a 20-day ultimatum to hand over admissions data or face consequences that could make the Columbia settlement look mild.
Harvard Still Won't Show Its Work
The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened both investigations Monday – one targeting Harvard's compliance with the Supreme Court's 2023 affirmative action ban, the other targeting ongoing antisemitism on campus.
The affirmative action probe goes straight to the stonewall.
The Trump administration requested Harvard's admissions data back in May 2025.
Harvard refused to fully comply.
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The Justice Department filed a separate lawsuit in February just to force the school to hand it over.
Now Education Secretary Linda McMahon is done asking.
"Harvard University should know better," McMahon said Monday. "Its name will always be tied to the landmark Supreme Court case that found sweeping racial discrimination in admissions and the campus has been in the spotlight for tolerating egregious antisemitic harassment for years now."
Harvard has 20 days to comply before the administration moves to enforcement – including a referral to the Justice Department.
"No one – not even Harvard – is above the law," McMahon added.
What Harvard Knew About Its Jewish Students
The antisemitism probe isn't based on outside complaints alone.
Harvard's own task force told them exactly what was happening on campus – and Harvard sat on it.
Harvard's 2025 Task Force Report found 26% of Jewish students felt physically unsafe.
Twenty-nine percent said they did not feel at home.
Forty-four percent reported feeling mentally unsafe.
Jewish students told the task force the harassment was "nonstop and unrelenting."
One student reported being stalked across Harvard Yard and having "Heil Hitler" yelled at them twice.
Another said they'd "never felt less safe on a campus."
A Harvard employee tore down hostage posters – including the faces of the Bibas children – in Harvard Yard as recently as March 3, 2025.
Harvard President Alan Garber had all of it in writing.
His response was to call the federal government's investigations "retaliatory."
The DOJ filed its antisemitism lawsuit three days before Monday's double investigation announcement – using Harvard's own task force findings to argue the school showed "deliberate indifference" while Jewish and Israeli students were harassed, stalked, spat upon, and denied access to educational facilities.
The Trap Harvard Built for Itself
Harvard was the named defendant in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard – the 6-2 Supreme Court ruling that ended race-based admissions in 2023.
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Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Harvard's program discriminated against Asian American applicants in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Harvard's response was to keep "emphasizing the importance of diversity while reviewing aspects of its admissions policies."
That's the tell.
After the ruling, Black enrollment at Harvard dropped from 18% to under 12% in the next incoming class.
That demographic shift tells a story – but only if you can see the underlying data.
Harvard has produced more than 2,000 pages of documents while the government argues the records remain incomplete and stripped of the individual-level data needed to verify compliance.
Ed Blum – architect of the lawsuit that ended affirmative action – said last August the admissions data demand is critical because it is "likely that some colleges and universities are ignoring" the Supreme Court ruling.
Innocent schools don't hide their records.
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Columbia learned that lesson the hard way – settling with the Trump administration to avoid the full weight of federal enforcement.
Harvard chose to fight.
The 20-day deadline that started Monday is where that strategy either holds or collapses.
Miss the deadline, and the Education Department refers Harvard to the Justice Department – which already has two active lawsuits against the school.
The administration has additional pressure points ready: frozen research funding, terminated grants, and the option of cutting off federal financial aid entirely.
Harvard is betting its institutional independence against an administration that just made an example out of Columbia.
That bet gets called in 20 days.
Sources:
- Lexi Lonas Cochran, "Trump Administration Launches Two More Harvard Probes," The Hill, March 24, 2026.
- "Education Department Launches Twin Investigations Into Harvard Admissions and Antisemitism," The Harvard Crimson, March 24, 2026.
- "Trump Administration Opens Two New Investigations Into Harvard," The Boston Globe, March 23, 2026.
- "HHS Civil Rights Office Finds Harvard University in Violation of Federal Civil Rights Law," HHS.gov, June 30, 2025.
- "Trump's Demand for Admissions Data Sends Wary Colleges Scrambling," Bloomberg, March 23, 2026.
