(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s administration is launching an investigation into Harvard University’s law journal over alleged discriminatory practices, expanding its weeks-long battle over federal funding with the elite institution.
The civil rights offices of the Education and Health and Human Services departments announced Monday they are investigating the Harvard Law Review, an independent, student-run organization that promotes legal scholarship.
The offices are investigating allegations that the journal discriminates based on race “in lieu of merit-based” standards, in violation of the Title VI anti-discrimination law, according to a release by the two agencies.
“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,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary within the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement on Monday.
The agencies said the Harvard Law Review risks losing federal funding if found to have broken Title VI law.
The Harvard Law Review has been published and edited by students for over 135 years. It aims to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students, according to its website.
“Harvard Law School is committed to ensuring that the programs and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations,” a spokesperson for the university said in a statement to ABC News, noting that the journal “is a student-run organization that is legally independent from the law school.”
The latest investigation comes after the Trump administration froze over $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard after the university refused to comply with a series of demands following an antisemitism task force review earlier this month.
Harvard University President Alan Garber said in a letter at the time that “no government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The university has filed a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding, asking a judge to block the funding freeze from going into effect, arguing the move is “unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.”
During a short conference on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs scheduled oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the funding freeze on July 21. In the meantime, the funding freeze will remain in effect.
The Internal Revenue Service is also considering revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, sources told ABC News earlier this month.
In other developments, the Department of Education said Monday its civil rights office found that the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete on its women’s sports teams.
The department is demanding the university issue a statement to its community that it will comply with the law, apologize to athletes whose athletic participation was “marred by sex discrimination,” and restore all athletics records or accolades “misappropriated by male athletes.” The school has 10 days to resolve the violation or risk a referral to the Department of Justice.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it suspended $175 million in federal contracts awarded to Penn, citing the participation of a transgender athlete on a women’s swimming team.
A Penn spokesperson said at the time that the university has “always followed” NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
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