San Antonio Express-News

DOJ sues Yale over admissions discrimina­tion

- By Anemona Hartocolli­s

The Justice Department sued Yale University on Thursday on the grounds that the prestigiou­s university discrimina­ted against white and Asian American applicants in its admission process.

A multiyear investigat­ion, the Justice Department said, found that white and Asian American applicants were one-eighth to one-fourth as likely to be admitted as African American applicants with the same credential­s.

“Illegal race discrimina­tion by colleges and universiti­es must end,” Assistant Attorney General Eric S. Dreiband said in a news release about the lawsuit. He added: “All persons who apply for admission to colleges and universiti­es should expect and know that they will be judged by their character, talents, and achievemen­ts and not the color of their skin. To do otherwise is to permit our institutio­ns to foster stereotype­s, bitterness, and division.”

According to the Justice Department, the discrimina­tory practices constitute a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says that programs receiving taxpayer funding cannot discrimina­te.

Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, said in a statement Thursday that the Justice Department’s allegation of racial discrimina­tion was based on “inaccurate statistics and unfounded conclusion­s,” several of which the university tried to correct before the department filed suit.

“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. Yale’s admissions policies will not change as a result of the filing of this baseless lawsuit.”

Salovey acknowledg­ed that the university did consider many aspects of a candidate’s life, including race and ethnicity, but only as one element in a thorough examinatio­n of academic achievemen­t, extracurri­cular activities, military service and more.

In August, the Justice Department accused Yale of violating federal civil rights law, in an escalation of the Trump administra­tion’s moves against race-based admissions policies at elite universiti­es. The department demanded that the university stop considerin­g race or national origin in its next admissions cycle or face a federal lawsuit.

The charge, coming after a twoyear investigat­ion of a complaint by a coalition of Asian American organizati­ons, was the administra­tion’s second confrontat­ion with an Ivy League school over admissions policies. Two years ago, the Justice Department publicly backed Asian American students who accused Harvard in a lawsuit of systematic­ally discrimina­ting against them; a federal judge ruled in Harvard’s favor last year, but the federal government continues to support the plaintiffs.

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