The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has asked a federal court in Boston to require Harvard University to provide records in an investigation of its hiring practices. The EEOC is examining allegations of bias, particularly against white men. The suit was filed late Tuesday after commission chair Andrea Lucas had previously lodged a complaint alleging systemic race and sex discrimination.
Lucas alleges that since 2018 Harvard hiring practices disadvantaged white, Asian, male or heterosexual workers and applicants as the university pursued faculty demographic diversity. The EEOC says Harvard supplied some files but refused a broad set of records, including data on all faculty applicants from 2018 onward. The agency asked a judge to enforce its subpoena as part of an investigation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In court filings, Harvard’s lawyers said the EEOC was not conducting a good-faith inquiry but was part of a broader government retaliation campaign after the university refused demands to overhaul hiring and academic programs. Harvard did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The dispute comes amid other legal battles between Harvard and the Trump administration. The university has won rulings against efforts to cut more than $2 billion in grants and block international students from attending. Separately, the Justice Department has sued for records on Harvard’s use of race in admissions; a federal judge appeared skeptical of that case at a Friday hearing. The EEOC matter concerns employment, not student admissions.