EXCLUSIVE: Trump Administration Launches Civil Rights Probe of Harvard’s Hiring Practices

EEOC investigation follows school’s statement that it had increased the number of ‘women, non-binary, and/or people of color’ on its faculty.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating whether Harvard University unlawfully hires faculty based on race and sex, arguing that the school’s own data provides evidence of discrimination. The probe is the latest federal action against the beleaguered university, which last month sued the Trump administration over its decision to freeze more than $2 billion in aid to the Ivy League school.

In a document initiating the investigation, the EEOC cited materials on Harvard’s website—many of them now deleted—in which the school bragged about increasing the number of “women, non-binary, and/or people of color” on the faculty. The largest increase was in the share of non-white tenure-track faculty, which rose by 37 percent between 2013 and 2023.

The majority of those new hires, Harvard noted in a 2023 report, had been made in the past year.

White men, meanwhile, decreased dramatically as a share of tenure-track faculty, dropping from 46 percent in 2013 to 32 percent in 2023. Every other demographic for which Harvard collects data, including white women, rose over the same period.

The EEOC probe, launched on April 25, has not been previously reported. It comes as Harvard is fending off investigations from at least four other government agencies, part of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on anti-Semitism and racial preferences on college campuses.

The statistics cited in Harvard’s own reports could be evidence of a “pattern or practice of discrimination,” acting EEOC commissioner Andrea Lucas wrote in the document, known as a commissioner charge. The agency also cited a bevy of fellowships and training programs that only accept non-white applicants, such as a Harvard Medical School internship for “underrepresented minority (URM)” students.

“Harvard may have violated and may be continuing to violate Title VII by engaging in a pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white, Asian, male, or straight employees, applicants, and training program participants,” Lucas wrote. “The aggrieved individuals include all employees, former employees, prospective employees, and current and prospective training program applicants and participants who are white, Asian, male, non-black, non-Native American, or straight.”

Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.

The university is facing additional probes by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services over the use of racial preferences at Harvard Law Review. Along with the General Services Administration, both agencies are also involved in the Justice Department’s anti-Semitism task force, which froze $2.2 billion to Harvard in April after the school rejected a sweeping set of demands from the White House. Harvard is currently challenging the grant freeze in federal court.

Unlike HHS and the Education Department, the EEOC cannot cut off funds to institutions found to be violating civil rights law. It can, however, sue employers based on the results of its investigations, which have led to settlements as large as $250 million.

The agency’s probe of Harvard comes as universities around the country are facing lawsuits over their discriminatory hiring practices. The University of Illinois Chicago, for example, was sued in February by a former professor who alleged that he was fired for speaking out about racial quotas in faculty hiring. Northwestern University was hit with a similar lawsuit last year.

Some of those complaints have focused on fellowships and training programs like those at Harvard, which say, in writing, that only minorities can apply.

At the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, a program for “underrepresented minority” students aims to “increase faculty and trainee diversity.” At the university’s graduate school of arts and sciences, multiple programs offer paid employment to scholars from “underrepresented” groups. At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a paid internship “recruits undergraduates belonging to underrepresented groups for graduate-level training.”

“The above allegations are based on publicly available information regarding Harvard, including, but not limited to, documents and information published on Harvard and its affiliates’ public webpages,” Lucas wrote in the commissioner charge. “This Charge covers all entities managed by, affiliated with, related, or operating jointly with” Harvard.

Peter Hasson contributed to reporting for this story.