U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division DJ 169-36-72 Assistant Attorney General 950 Ave, NW - RFK Washington. DC 20530 November 17, 2017 Via email Seth P. Waxman Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP 1875 Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20006 Dear Mr. Waxman: I write to notify you of the United States? determination that Harvard is not complying with its Title VI access requirements, and that Harvard?s actions indicate that this noncompliance cannot be corrected by informal means. See 28 C.F.R. At Harvard?s request, several Department of Justice attorneys met with you and other representatives of Harvard on September 11, 2017. At that meeting, Harvard?s representatives offered to work collaboratively to provide the United States with access to materials to which it is entitled under Title VI, the implementing regulations, and the governing law. Harvard, however, subsequently responded to the Department?s informal attempts to obtain documents with delays and challenges to the Department?s authority. The Department therefore sent a formal document request on October 19, 2017, with a deadline for compliance of November 2. You sent a belated response on November 7 that again challenged our authority to investigate Harvard and proposed providing the United States only restricted access to limited documents in contravention of Harvard?s Title VI obligations. We responded separately to that unacceptable proposal today. More than two months have passed since our September meeting, and Harvard has not yet produced a single document. We sincerely hope that Harvard will quickly correct its noncompliance and return to its collaborative approach. In a further effort to secure voluntary compliance, the Department will give Harvard until December 1, 2017, to comply with its October 19 document request. As we indicated in our separate response letter today, Department lawyers are Willing to travel to your law ?rm or Cambridge to copy and download all of the documents and information that the Department requested in the formats in which it requested them. Please be advised that if Harvard does not comply with the document request in full by that deadline, we may file a lawsuit to enforce Harvard?s Title VI access obligations. 28 C.F.R. cc via email: Felicia H. Ellsworth Robert N. Driscoll Sincerely, 7 Msg.? M. Gore Aeting Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division