Justice Department accuses Yale of discrimination in application process
The Justice Department on Thursday accused Yale University of violating civil rights law by discriminating against Asian American and white applicants, an escalation of the Trump administration’s moves against race-based admissions policies at elite uniconsequences versities.
The finding, coming after a two-year investigation, is the administration’s second confrontation with an Ivy League school; two years ago, it publicly backed Asian American students who accused Harvard in a lawsuit of systematically discriminating against them.
The department’s finding could have far-reaching for the ongoing legal challenges to college admissions policies and for affirmative action. Some conservative groups have long opposed the practice, and a handful of states have banned such policies at public universities.
“There is no such thing as a nice form of race discrimination,” Eric Dreiband, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, said in announcing the Justice Department’s move against Yale. “Unlawfully dividing Americans into racial and ethnic blocks fosters stereotypes, bitterness and division.”
The Justice Department said Yale had violated Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action by using race not as one of many factors, but as a predominant or determining factor in admissions — an effect that was multiplied for competitive applicants.
It ordered Yale to suspend the use of race or national origin in its admissions process for one year. At the end of that year, the university would need to seek clearance from the government to begin using race as a factor again, the department said.
Yale pledged to fight the department’s order, saying Thursday that it “categorically denies this allegation” and that it would hold fast to its admissions process.
The university said it looks at the “whole person” when deciding whether to admit a student — not just academic achievement, but interests, leadership and “the likelihood that they will contribute to the Yale community and the world.”
“Yale’s practices absolutely comply with decades of Supreme Court precedent,” the university’s statement said. “We are proud of Yale’s admissions practices, and we will not change them on the basis of such a meritless, hasty accusation.”
Dreiband said the evidence indicated that Yale was racially balancing its classes by admitting similar proportions of each major racial group year after year and that it had not made a serious effort since at least the 1970s to find another way of building a diverse student body.