The Trump administration has turned its gaze on Harvard University, peeling back the ivy leaves to scrutinize the school’s hiring practices. The goal? To determine if the esteemed institution has been casting its net unevenly, favoring or discriminating against male, heterosexual, white, or Asian workers when hiring employees or promoting within its hallowed halls.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission acting chair Andrea Lucas is the one who’s kicked this hornet’s nest. According to her, documents that have mysteriously disappeared from the university’s website hint at a shifting tide in faculty diversity over the past 10 years. She points to a drop in white male tenured faculty members from 64% to 56% between 2013 and 2023, and a similar dip in tenure-track faculty who are white men from 46% to 32%.
Lucas believes these numbers aren’t just statistical flotsam and jetsam, but instead indicative of an “underlying pattern or practice of discrimination” based on race and sex.
In response, a spokesperson for Harvard referenced a letter from the school’s president, Alan Garber, who insists that employment at the university is “based on merit and achievement.” He stressed that Harvard does not operate based on quotas, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any other characteristic.
The investigation also includes allegations that student employees faced discrimination from Harvard. Lucas has cast a spotlight on training and fellowship programs for people from underrepresented minorities in scientific research or in the university’s medical program, and associated institutions, including the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Massachusetts General Hospital.
This all comes at a time when Harvard and other top universities are in the crosshairs of President Trump’s administration, which has been freezing federal grants and contracts and conducting probes into schools it alleges failed to protect Jewish students during campus pro-Palestinian protests last year.
America’s higher education institutions are under scrutiny, and the administration seems determined to reshape the landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Only time will reveal what else this investigation uncovers.
