Investigations of racial discrimination by the Trump administration at Harvard Law Review.

The Trump administration recently declared that federal officials are commencing investigations into Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review. This move follows reports of race-based discrimination allegedly “permeating the operations” of the journal. These investigations are in response to Harvard’s refusal to comply with demands to limit activism on campus, leading to a freeze on $2.2 billion in federal grants imposed by the Trump administration.

Among the demands sent to Harvard was a request to clarify its campus speech policies restricting the time, place, and manner of protests and activities. Additionally, the letter called for a review of academic departments at Harvard accused of fostering antisemitic harassment, aiming to address bias and enhance viewpoint diversity.

This legal dispute resulted in the first court meeting between the involved parties. The U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services have announced separate investigations into the journal’s membership and article selection practices. The authorities suspect that these policies and practices might contravene Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

According to the federal government, the editor of the Harvard Law Review reportedly wrote that it was “concerning” that the majority of the people who had wanted to reply to an article about police reform “are white men.” A separate editor allegedly suggested “that a piece should be subject to expedited review because the author was a minority.”

“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor in a statement. “Title VI’s demands are clear: recipients of federal financial assistance may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin. No institution — no matter its pedigree, prestige, or wealth — is above the law.”

An email seeking comment was sent Monday to a spokesperson for Harvard.

Harvard is among multiple universities across the country where pro-Palestinian protests erupted on campus amid the war in Gaza last year. Republican officials have since heavily scrutinized those universities, and several Ivy League presidents testified before Congress to discuss antisemitism allegations. The Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution was the fifth Ivy League school targeted in a pressure campaign by the administration, which also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, and Princeton universities to force compliance with its agenda.