The Department of Justice sued Harvard. It skipped a step.
According to U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston, the government did not take all the legally required steps to secure voluntary compliance first. The complaint didn't even allege that DOJ told Harvard it would sue if Harvard stalled.
That is the legal equivalent of showing up to a duel without telling the other guy there's a duel.
Joun's opinion ran ten pages. The government needed one: a checklist.
The administration wanted years of applicant-level admissions data. Harvard declined. The Justice Department filed in February. Harvard says that came right after Trump ended settlement talks and demanded $1 billion. The judge didn't rule on that. He didn't rule on whether Harvard discriminated, either. He ruled on paperwork.
Harvard, an institution that charges people $80,000 a year to learn how to read documents, beat the federal government on reading documents.
Fine print. The most dangerous thing in America.
The dismissal doesn't settle the merits. The government can refile once it fixes its homework. So nobody won anything permanent. Harvard keeps its data and the DOJ keeps its enthusiasm.
Retail traders will read this as a bullish signal for something. Anything. They will buy a ticker with "HARV" in it, and it will be a regional hardware chain in Ohio.
The chart for federal litigation strategy looks like a man falling down stairs. Technically it's a trend. Technically it's a descent.
Somewhere in the Justice Department, an attorney is staring at a form he was supposed to mail in the spring.
Harvard won on a technicality, which is the only kind of win a place that old still respects.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
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