Trump admin calls for making public Harvard's admission data following discrimination suit

The US Department of Justice has called for making public Harvard University's admissions data after a lawsuit against the Ivy League institution alleged that it discriminated against Asian-Americans students in its admissions process for years.

A lawsuit was filed in November 2014 by anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions alleging that Harvard admissions practices discriminate against Asian-American applicants.

In a filing yesterday in a Boston federal court, the Justice Department called on the court to make Harvard's documents public, saying the government has a substantial interest in the case.

Students for Fair Admissions includes over a dozen students who claim they were rejected from Harvard because the it engages in "racial balancing" by capping the number of Asian-Americans it admits each year.

According to a report in The Harvard Crimson, the university paper, the Department of Justice called for the unsealing of the admissions data, which Harvard has repeatedly argued should remain private.

The report said the department's filing also directly tied the admissions lawsuit to its own ongoing probe into Harvard's admissions processes, arguing that the lawsuit overlaps and could directly bear on the separate Justice Department investigation.

"This case thus overlaps with the legal and factual bases undergirding the United States' investigation and could directly bear on that investigation," Matthew Donnelly, a Justice Department lawyer said in the brief.

Harvard's proposal contravenes the law and imperils the interest of the public."