Feds sue Yale over admissions
NEW HAVEN — The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Yale University, claiming the Ivy League institution’s admissions practices discriminate against white and Asian applicants.
The lawsuit caps off a two-year investigation by the department, which in August alleged that the university’s admissions practices unfairly affect white and Asian students.
The Justice Department alleges Yale’s admissions practices favor African American applicants over their Asian and white peers with similar academic scores.
“Although the Supreme Court has held that colleges receiving federal funds may consider applicants’ race in certain limited circumstances as one of a number of factors,” a news release from the agency said, “the Department of Justice found Yale’s use of race is anything but limited.”
The lawsuit also alleges the university “engages in racial balancing” through “keeping the annual percentage of African-American admitted applicants to within one percentage point of the previous year’s admitted class.”
In a statement released Thursday evening, Yale President Peter Salovey said the Justice Department’s claims, including that the proportion of different racial groups admitted to the university remained stable, are based on “based on inaccurate statistics and unfounded conclusions.”
“In the last two decades, the percentage of admitted applicants fluctuated significantly for all groups,” Salovey said in response to that allegation.
He called the lawsuit “baseless,” and said the school looks forward to defending its actions in court.
“I want to be clear: Yale does not discriminate against applicants of any race or ethnicity,” Salovey said. “Our admissions practices are completely fair and lawful.”
The Justice Department claims Yale’s use of race at “multiple steps” in the admissions process results “in a multiplied effect of race” on applicants chances of getting into the school.
Salovey said the school cannot base admissions solely on academic and test scores, because the school has so many applicants with excellent scores, which also do “not provide a complete picture of each applicant.”
The department’s suit cites the 1964 civil rights act in its claim the university unfairly uses race to determine whether or not applicants get in— a law that was passed to end discrimination in hiring and other practices that largely affected Black Americans.
A similar suit, brought by a group of Asian American activists against Harvard, failed to persuade a federal Judge last year, who ruled that university’s admissions practices did not constitute racial animus against Asian Americans.
The suit came after the Department of Justice said the school refused to stop using race or national origins in its 2021-2022 admissions. “The department therefore notified Yale that efforts at voluntary compliance had failed and filed suit,” the release said.
Salovey said the university’s admissions practices will continue unchanged.