Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit for Harvard admissions records, but the government can sue again

A US federal judge has thrown out the Trump administration's lawsuit demanding Harvard University's applicant-by-applicant admissions records, ruling that the Justice Department sued before taking the steps the law requires. Judge Myoung J. Joun dismissed the case on Monday, 2 November 2026, The Harvard Crimson reported. The ruling is procedural, so the government can sue again.

What the government wanted

The Justice Department filed the suit in February 2026, saying Harvard had "thwarted" and slow-walked a federal civil rights review. It wanted individual applicants' admissions files to check whether Harvard is obeying the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that banned race-conscious admissions. In May, the Education Department folded its own admissions investigation into the same case.

Harvard says it handed over more than 2,000 pages of documents but held back individual student records, which it treats as privileged. Legal experts have said such a demand could clash with FERPA, the US federal law that protects student records.

Why the judge dismissed it

• The Justice Department did not show it had first tried to get Harvard to comply voluntarily, a required step before suing.
• The complaint did not say the department had warned Harvard it would go to court, or told it exactly what it was failing to do.
• The Education Department also skipped required procedural steps before joining the case.

Joun did not decide whether the records demand was lawful, or whether the suit was brought to punish Harvard, as the university argues. Those questions "remain open", he wrote. At a hearing in September he had described the government's stance in negotiations as an "ultimatum". Harvard, the Justice Department and the Education Department did not immediately comment, the Crimson said.

Why it matters to students in Pakistan

Harvard and other US universities are in a long fight with the administration over funding, admissions and international students, and every ruling feeds into how safe a US admission looks to applicants abroad. For Pakistani students applying for autumn 2027, nothing changes today: Harvard's admissions process and financial aid run as before. The ruling came less than a week after Harvard published Class of 2030 figures showing Black students fell to 9.3% of the class and Asian American students rose to 43.2%.

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