The Trump administration, opening a new path in its campaign against Harvard University, is now tapping the Department of Justice to investigate Harvard’s compliance with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. 

The justice department notified Harvard about the inquiry on Monday, according to the New York Times. The probe was opened under the False Claims Act, a federal law designed to hold accountable those who defraud the government — one not commonly used against universities. 

As part of the probe, Harvard is being asked to hand over scores of internal communications, including those that may relate to President Trump’s executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion. If Harvard is found liable for defrauding the government, it could face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.  

A Harvard spokesman, Jonathan Swain, dismissed the investigation as “yet another abusive and retaliatory action — the latest of many — that the administration has initiated against Harvard.” He insisted that the school “immediately” responded to the Supreme Court ruling and has been acting in accordance with the law ever since. 

The probe adds to the mounting offensives levied by the current administration against Harvard University. The first big move came in April, when the Department of Justice’s antisemitism task force froze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard after the school refused to implement a list of broad reforms to quash antisemitism and anti-conservative bias on campus. Harvard is challenging the government in federal court.

Since then, Harvard has fielded retaliation from the government on nearly all fronts — from revoking its tax exempt status to denying it visas for foreign students. At the end of April, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission became the sixth federal agency to launch a probe into Harvard, this time going after the school for potentially unlawfully considering race and sex in faculty hiring decisions.  

Those allegations have been heating up with a report published in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal this week that presents newly unearthed internal hiring documents as evidence of Harvard’s race-based hiring practices. 

“Behind the scenes, the university’s discrimination machine continues to operate at full capacity,” the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo reported.

The trove of documents include an “Inclusive Hiring Initiative” guide, a manual of “best practices” for faculty searches, a list of “diversity-related” sample interview questions, and more. Together, they point to Harvard’s “systematic discrimination against disfavored groups: namely, white men,” Mr. Rufo charges. 

The hiring guides offer a damning display of Harvard’s systematic efforts to tip the scales in favor of female and minority applicants at nearly every stage of the hiring process.

In one document, “Best Practices for Conducting Faculty Searches,” search committees are instructed to “ensure that the early lists include women and minorities” and to “consider reading the applications of women and minorities first.” As the candidate list whittles down, the committee head is directed to “continually monitor” the racial composition of the roster. 

According to Mr. Rufo, Harvard deleted the hiring guide from its website following the publication of his report. 

Other internal documents show Harvard’s race-based hiring goals for administrative positions. One sheet lists each type of job at Harvard next to the percentage of employees in those positions who belong to a “protected class” — such as women or minorities. In the next column, the school assigns to each job a target “protected class” percentage. For one alumni affairs office job group, the university suggests increasing the share of minorities by nearly six times. 

Harvard did not respond when asked if it still enforces the race-based hiring programs, Mr. Rufo reports. He added that the only hiring reform that his Harvard source could recall was the school’s decision last year to discontinue mandatory DEI statements.