U.S. urges release of Harvard’s data

NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department is joining a legal attack on Harvard University’s admissions policies, saying the government and the public have a right to see the admissions data of hundreds of thousands of applicants to the nation’s oldest university.

The government’s request to unseal documents comes in a Boston federal court lawsuit filed by more than a dozen Asian-American students who applied to Harvard and were rejected.

They sued the university in 2014, claiming it systematically discriminates against people of Asian backgrounds while giving preference to other racial and ethnic groups.

Harvard has turned over six years of admissions data on hundreds of thousands of high school students to the plaintiffs, whose lawyers are urging U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs to make the information public while she considers their request for a ruling to resolve the case in their favor without a trial.

The university is resisting, saying the release of the data would be tantamount to publishing confidential trade secrets on how it evaluates applications.

A hearing is set for Tuesday.

The Justice Department on Friday urged the court to make Harvard’s documents public, saying the government has a “substantial interest” in the case because its interests overlap with an ongoing U.S. probe based on similar complaints.