The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asked a federal judge to compel Harvard to hand over records in the agency’s investigation into what it described as “systemic discrimination” in the university’s employment practices, particularly against white men.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the E.E.O.C. accused the university of noncompliance, escalating a legal battle that had been brewing for more than a year, court filings show.
Lawyers for Harvard have called the E.E.O.C.’s investigation a part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to punish Harvard. “The Government has not concealed that its all-out campaign targets Harvard for the assertion of its constitutional rights,” the lawyers wrote in a June motion, which the agency included in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
Harvard’s lawyers noted that Andrea Lucas, the Republican chair of the E.E.O.C., filed her civil rights charge against Harvard in April 2025, four days after the university sued the federal government for freezing $2.2 billion in funding.
Since becoming the E.E.O.C. chair early last year, Ms. Lucas has used the agency’s authority to target institutions and companies over their diversity, equity and inclusion practices. She has filed charges against Nike, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University; she has also pursued discrimination claims against The New York Times and Coca-Cola.
The lawsuit is the third this year from the Trump administration against Harvard, expanding the litigious front in a pressure campaign from Washington to force cultural changes on the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. From barring sex discrimination protections based on gender identity to stamping out programs aimed at helping diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I. — a catchall term increasingly used to describe policies that benefit those who are not white men — the administration has relied on legal challenges and threats of funding cuts to try to bring Harvard, and other elite universities, to heel.
In August, a federal judge in Boston dismissed one of the government’s lawsuits against Harvard. In that case, the Justice Department accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students and faculty from antisemitism, and, as a result, had breached billions in federal research contacts. The administration has appealed that ruling.
A second lawsuit still pending against Harvard examines whether the university, as the Justice Department has said, has illegally refused to produce documents that the administration is seeking as part of an investigation looking at whether the university uses admissions policies to discriminate against white applicants.
Harvard has also sued the Trump administration. The university filed its suit last year to block the White House’s attempts to cut the school’s research funding over demands that would have given the federal government more direct oversight into which students are admitted, who is hired on the faculty and what is taught in classrooms. Administration officials have described those changes as merely an opening offer in negotiations, but the university said the tactics crossed a legal line and a federal judge agreed. The White House is appealing.