{shortcode-1648b238c556c6221e5760b25068286a39a419d3}

The Harvard Law Review disputed allegations that it had illegally considered race in selecting editors and articles for publication — one month after two federal agencies opened an investigation into the claims.

The Law Review first came under scrutiny after the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, published leaked documents that showed Law Review editors discussing applicants’ demographic profiles. The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services opened investigations into Harvard days later, repeating the Free Beacon’s allegations.

Since then, the federal government has seized on the Free Beacon’s materials to argue that Harvard permitted anti-white discrimination — including in Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter disqualifying Harvard from future federal grants and a Tuesday draft letter from the General Services Administration that would pull Harvard’s remaining federal contracts.

But on Tuesday, Harvard Law Review President G. Terrell Seabrooks released a fact sheet that contained detailed information on the Law Review’s internal structure and article selection processes. The fact sheet cast doubt on the Free Beacon’s claims and accused news reports of having “mischaracterized” the journal’s procedures.

Seabrooks wrote in a “State of the Review” message accompanying the fact sheet that no federal agency had directly contacted the Law Review about the investigation. He added that the leaders of the Law Review “categorically deny” allegations of race-based discrimination at the organization and are “committed to complying with all applicable laws.”

Both the Free Beacon and the two departments suggested that the Law Review may have violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race and national origin at federally funded programs and institutions.

Seabrooks declined to comment beyond the Law Review’s public statements for this piece.

The Free Beacon and a press release announcing the federal investigation claims that the Law Review engaged in race-based discrimination when it considered applicants’ personal statements in determining its membership.

Each year, of the 54 new second-year HLS students admitted as Law Review editors, 30 are chosen through a writing competition, focused on legal arguments, or a combination of the competition and their grades from their first year of law school. But the remaining 24 students are selected through a holistic review process that considers an additional personal statement.

The Free Beacon cited a 2021 Law Review resolution that affirmed the selection committee “shall hold as its first priority the inclusion of qualified editors from underrepresented groups, considering factors including but not limited to race, socioeconomic background, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability.”

But the Law Review fact sheet referred to a different document, outlining guidelines for editor selection, that states that discussion of “race alone” in a personal statement cannot be considered except “to the extent that the discussion demonstrates some other attribute,” such as leadership ability. The guidelines referred directly to Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the case that overturned affirmative action in 2023.

The Law Review fact sheet also stated that the 2021 resolution published by the Free Beacon was the product of a nonbinding vote by a previous generation of the Law Review’s incoming editors — half the journal’s membership at the time — to establish goals for their tenure.

The Free Beacon also drew on leaked guidelines for reviewing article submissions and editors’ memos to allege that nonwhite authors were boosted based on their race, and that another author was dinged because he was “not from an underrepresented background.”

It also cited a Slack message requesting to expedite the review process for an article by a “POC author from outside T14,” a reference to the top 14 law schools nationwide.

“Editors routinely kill or advance pieces based in part on the race of the author,” the Free Beacon wrote. The HHS and Education Department investigation directly echoed its claims.

In response, the Law Review stated that it does not expedite the selection process for authors of any particular race, but does expedite”offers for authors receiving “exploding offers” — publication offers that will expire unless accepted before an early deadline — from peer journals.

The fact sheet stated that the Law Review is more likely to expedite offers to “less-established professors” because they are more likely to be targeted with exploding offers.

The memos leaked to the Free Beacon were created by individual editors, but the article selection process is open to the Law Review’s entire membership, the Law Review claimed. Authors’ names and demographic information are not available to editors during the first two stages of the review process.

“The Review is assessing its guidance to editors to make it even more clear that the Review does not consider or select pieces for publication on the basis of any protected characteristic,” the fact sheet stated.

The Law Review also distanced itself from Harvard, which was also subject to the investigation, reiterating that it is “legally and functionally separate from and independent of” HLS and the University.

The publication is largely student-run and is an independent nonprofit, but it uses a building on Harvard’s campus and is overseen by a board that includes the HLS dean as an ex officio member.

Title VI applies to entities that receive federal financial assistance — which would apply to Harvard but not necessarily the Law Review. The federal investigation pledged to “examine Harvard’s relationship with the journal, including “financial ties, oversight procedures, and selection policies.”

In a follow-up report, the Free Beacon claimed that Harvard professors signed off on awarding a $65,000 fellowship to Ibrahim I. Bharmal, a graduating Harvard Law School student who was charged with assault and battery after an altercation at a pro-Palestine protest last year but diverted before the case went to trial.

But the Law Review fact sheet explained that the organization’s fellows — individuals working in public interest roles at government agencies or nonprofits, supported by the Law Review — are selected solely by committees composed of former fellows and Law Review alumni, and that “none of the professors involved in the selection process are from Harvard Law School.”

The Tuesday fact sheet is the Law Review’s first public statement on either the reported allegations or the federal investigation. But the Law Review has quietly changed some other public-facing materials since the first Free Beacon article was published on April 25. Its online prompt to holistic review applicants was changed — sometime after the last available snapshot of the page was captured on April 27 — to omit references to race.

A previous version of the prompt invited students to discuss aspects of their identity, including race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or socioeconomic status, in addition to their career goals or academic interests. Now, the prompt only mentions the latter.

The Law Review also used to list its board of editors online. Since April 25, the list — which included more than 100 student names — has been removed from the publication’s site. A link to the page now returns an error message.

—Staff writer Caroline G. Hennigan can be reached at caroline.hennigan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cghennigan.