Legal Experts Say DOJ Lawsuit Over Harvard Admissions Records Faces FERPA Hurdle

The Trump administration’s Friday lawsuit seeking Harvard’s admissions records may run up against the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that restricts the disclosure of student records that could identify individual applicants, according to legal experts.

Scholars said the Department of Justice’s demand for applicant-level admissions data — including grades, standardized test scores, race, and internal evaluations — risks violating FERPA because those data points, when combined, could make individual students identifiable, even if names are removed.

The Crimson spoke with ten legal scholars and higher education experts, many of whom said the lawsuit may have significant legal hurdles under FERPA, as well as potential challenges tied to Harvard’s First Amendment rights.

Vinay Harpalani, a professor of law at the University of New Mexico, said he would “be surprised” if the administration were to succeed, citing the confidentiality issues inherent in providing applicant-level data.

“That risks particular privacy concerns there,” Harpalani said.

“If the individual data from a single applicant can all be linked — all the data, the grade, the test score, their race, ethnicity, other features about them — then that applicant might be able to be identified as an individual. And that could be problematic, that could run in violation of the FERPA,” he added.

The Justice Department launched a review in April 2025, seeking admissions data from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Medical School. The lawsuit, filed Friday morning, alleges that Harvard unlawfully withheld records needed to assess whether the University continues to discriminate in admissions following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending affirmative action.

The complaint asks a federal court to compel Harvard to turn over “documents relating to applicant-level admissions decisions” that the Department of Justice said it requested as part of the review.

Jonathan D. Glater, a professor of law at University of California, Berkeley, said the DOJ’s demand may run afoul of FERPA because the department is not an entity authorized to access student admissions records.

“Student personally identifiable information is protected by FERPA,” Glater wrote in a statement. “DOJ is not a listed entity and this is not part of a criminal investigation, so I’m not sure how this works.”

Beyond privacy concerns, legal experts said the request also raises questions about how admissions data can be interpreted in the first place. Glater added that the Justice Department may underestimate how admissions decisions are made and how difficult they are to evaluate using discrete variables alone.

“The College does not admit everyone with perfect test scores and perfect grades, for example,” Glater wrote. “Other factors are at play and the process is nuanced. I do not know how nuanced a process the DOJ is prepared to tolerate.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit marks the latest escalation in a months-long dispute between Harvard and the federal government. It follows a September 2025 ruling that struck down the White House’s $2.7 billion freeze on Harvard’s federal funding as unconstitutional — a decision the Trump administration appealed in December. The Trump administration cited antisemitism on campus and Harvard’s refusal to comply with federal demands as primary reasons for the freeze.

Paul A. Gowder, a law professor at Northwestern University, said the admissions lawsuit could be interpreted as an attempt to put further pressure on Harvard.

“The Trump administration is conducting a whole government effort to use every legal authority that they have their hands on to strike at Harvard to retaliate against it for not buckling down to control of its academic freedom,” he said.

Gowder added that Harvard’s strongest legal defense would be to show the court “what’s really going on” by proving that the lawsuit is not a good-faith effort to enforce civil rights law.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement to The Crimson that the lawsuit was yet another action “initiated simply because Harvard refused to surrender its independence” in response to “unlawful government overreach.”

Jonathan P. Feingold, a professor of law at Boston University, said the lawsuit has “nothing to do with protecting the civil rights of any student.”

“This gambit on the part of the federal government is part of a much broader effort to cripple institutions’ ability to actually have fair admissions processes that take into account a whole range of factors beyond standardized test scores,” Feingold said.

Experts also questioned whether the administration intended for the case to reach a judicial resolution at all.

“I don’t think this will actually go to court and go to litigation,” Harpalani said. “I think, again, this is part of a bargaining ploy in the administration’s broader confrontation with Harvard.”

—Staff writer Celine Muir can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @celinemuir1.

—Staff writer Alexa M. Schmitt can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X ​​@alexa_m15_s and Signal at alexaschmitt.15.