Harvard Law Review accused of retaliating against whistleblower in federal probe
The Harvard Law Review formally reprimanded a student editor, Daniel Wasserman, for allegedly sharing internal documents with the media and federal investigators.
The documents relate to claims that HLR's article selection process discriminates based on race, prompting a federal investigation and raising concerns about potential witness intimidation.
The Harvard Law Review (HLR) reprimanded a student for allegedly sharing certain documents with the Trump administration and conservative media, in an act that some have compared to witness intimidation.
On April 25, The Washington Free Beacon published a report expressing concerns that Harvard Law Review discriminates on the basis of race. Following the report, the Trump administration opened a racial discrimination investigation into HLR.
“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor on April 28.
In May, the law review disciplined one of its student editors, Daniel Wasserman, who allegedly shared the documents with the Free Beacon and the Trump administration. HLR reportedly demanded that Wasserman request the destruction of any documents that he shared.
HLR also issued a formal reprimand to Wasserman on May 22. “This Formal Reprimand informs you that your actions violate Law Review policies and do not reflect our community expectations,” the journal’s disciplinary committee explained. “Continued violations may give rise to additional disciplinary proceedings.”
A former official for the Department of Justice (DOJ), Jason Torchinsky, said that HLR’s tactics could amount to witness intimidation. “If you know someone is a witness in a federal investigation, and you try to intimidate them into stopping cooperation with the government, that in itself is its own offense,” he stated, as reported by the Free Beacon.
A spokesperson for the White House, Harrison Fields, told The New York Times that Wasserman acted bravely for calling to light HLR’s alleged discriminatory practices.
“Harvard is violating federal law with its discrimination, and a student was brave enough to call them out on this,” Fields contended. “Because of his actions, the Justice Department is investigating clear violations of the law.”
HLR is not the only Ivy League entity currently accused of retaliating against a student for exposing DEI-related (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) information. Alex Shieh, a student at Brown University, has accused his school’s administration of retaliating against him for attempting to expose the extent of the university’s administrative bureaucracy.
“As an investigative reporter for The Brown Spectator, I launched Bloat@Brown, a website that used AI to analyze administrative staff roles and necessity,” Shieh recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee. “I emailed each administrator at Brown with a request for comment.”
Following the emails, Brown told its employees “not to respond” and the school began the disciplinary process against the student. Shieh has since been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
