Govt drops racial discrimination suit against Yale

THE US Department of Justice dropped its lawsuit accusing Yale University of discriminating against Asian and white applicants in undergraduate admissions, as the debate over affirmative action in higher education heads for a possible showdown at the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit, which had been brought by the Trump administration, followed a November 12 decision by a federal appeals court that Harvard University’s use of race in undergraduate admissions complied with federal civil rights law.

In a letter to Yale’s lawyer, Gregory Friel, deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the Justice Department dropped the case “in light of all available facts, circumstances, and legal developments,” including the Harvard case.

He said the department, now under the Biden administration, will review the matter.

In a letter to the Yale community, the university’s president Peter Salovey welcomed the decision. He said Yale was committed to an academic environment “built on a wide range of strengths and backgrounds,” and confident its admissions process “complies fully with decades of Supreme Court decisions.”

The Ivy League school had been accused of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with policies that left Asian-Americans and whites 1/8 to 1/4 as likely to win admission as comparable blacks.

Yale was sued in October as part of then-President Donald Trump’s drive against affirmative action in admissions to elite universities.

President Joe Biden is expected to be more supportive than Trump of efforts to promote diversity.

Legal experts say the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority could use the Harvard case, which accused the school of discriminating against Asian-Americans, to end 43 years of letting race be used in higher education admissions.

(Reuters)