diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index aebfa596825..981e87614d1 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -59,6 +59,10 @@ Bug Fixes
 * LUCENE-7429: AnalyzerWrapper can now modify the normalization chain too and
   DelegatingAnalyzerWrapper does the right thing automatically. (Adrien Grand)
 
+* Lucene's check for 32 or 64 bit JVM now works around security
+  manager blocking access to some properties (Aaron Madlon-Kay via
+  Mike McCandless)
+
 Improvements
 
 * LUCENE-7439: FuzzyQuery now matches all terms within the specified
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/Constants.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/Constants.java
index 7df0efca4c5..e6a96096616 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/Constants.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/Constants.java
@@ -68,15 +68,17 @@ public final class Constants {
       JVM_MINOR_VERSION = 0;
     }
     boolean is64Bit = false;
-    final String x = System.getProperty("sun.arch.data.model");
-    if (x != null) {
-      is64Bit = x.contains("64");
-    } else {
-      if (OS_ARCH != null && OS_ARCH.contains("64")) {
-        is64Bit = true;
-      } else {
-        is64Bit = false;
+    String datamodel = null;
+    try {
+      datamodel = System.getProperty("sun.arch.data.model");
+      if (datamodel != null) {
+        is64Bit = datamodel.contains("64");
       }
+    } catch (SecurityException ex) {}
+    if (datamodel == null && OS_ARCH != null && OS_ARCH.contains("64")) {
+      is64Bit = true;
+    } else {
+      is64Bit = false;
     }
     JRE_IS_64BIT = is64Bit;
   }