Justice Department Says Duke Law School Illegally Considered Race In Admissions

DURHAM, N.C. — The Justice Department connected Thursday accused Duke University’s rule schoolhouse of unlawfully considering title successful admissions successful nan latest Trump management action against higher acquisition institutions.

In a findings missive to nan school, nan section said while administrators paid articulator work to being race-neutral successful admissions, they utilized different factors arsenic stand-ins for race, including individual essays and whether personification was a first-generation assemblage student.

The Durham, N.C., schoolhouse said successful an emailed connection it was reviewing nan missive and is committed to pursuing nan rule “in a mode that is accordant pinch our world mission.”

“Duke Law School doesn’t get a free walk to discriminate against achromatic and Asian students simply because it thinks it has bully intentions,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon of nan DOJ’s Civil Rights Division successful a news release. “Using ‘diversity’ effort questions to place preferred races for admittance is still forbidden favoritism based connected race.”

Affirmative action successful assemblage admissions has been forbidden since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling. The aforesaid ruling said colleges could proceed to measure really applicants’ backgrounds mightiness speak to broader characteristics, but President Trump has many times accused colleges of utilizing different proxies to support group diversity, which conservatives position arsenic forbidden discrimination.

The section precocious recovered that nan aesculapian schools astatine UCLA and Yale University illegally considered title successful admissions. It announced successful June that it was launching akin investigations into 15 different aesculapian schools.

The Trump management antecedently targeted undergraduate admissions astatine selective colleges, demanding they cod information to show they are complying pinch nan Supreme Court ruling.

In its findings against Duke Law, nan DOJ said Black aliases Latino applicants were overmuch much apt to beryllium admitted than achromatic aliases Asian applicants pinch nan aforesaid world credentials. Further, it said nan median rule schoolhouse amissions trial scores of rejected achromatic and Asian applicants successful 2024 and 2025 exceeded nan median scores of admitted Black applicants.

The section said it was seeking to scope a colony pinch Duke Law.