Yale University is under fire from the Department of Justice over admissions policies the DOJ says are racist against Asian-Americans and whites.Given this lawsuit and the Department of Education’s investigation of Princeton, it’s obvious that the federal government is taking a much more active interest in higher education.From the FOX Business Network:
Justice department sues Yale University over admissions practicesThe Justice Department filed a lawsuit Thursday against Yale University, alleging the school violated federal civil-rights law by discriminating against Asian-American and White applicants in undergraduate admissions.In the complaint, filed in federal district court in Connecticut, the Justice Department alleged that for the past few decades Yale’s “oversized, standardless, intentional use of race has subjected domestic, non-transfer applicants to Yale College to discrimination on the ground of race.”The lawsuit marks an escalation of the Trump administration’s scrutiny of elite colleges over their policies on race and admissions. The Justice Department has also supported legal efforts to end affirmative action at Harvard University, and the Education Department last month said it would investigate racism at Princeton University.Yale didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
CBS News reports that this scrutiny has not been limited to Yale:
Yale had denied the allegations, calling them “meritless” and “hasty.”The action from the Justice Department is the latest by the Trump administration in a long-running effort aimed at rooting out discrimination in the college application process, following complaints from students about the application process at some Ivy League colleges.The Justice Department’s investigation — which stemmed from a 2016 complaint against Yale, Brown and Dartmouth — also found that Yale uses race as a factor in multiple steps of the admissions process and that Yale “racially balances its classes,” officials said.
The DOJ Press Release state:
The Justice Department today filed suit against Yale University for race and national origin discrimination. The complaint alleges that Yale discriminated against applicants to Yale College on the grounds of race and national origin, and that Yale’s discrimination imposes undue and unlawful penalties on racially-disfavored applicants, including in particular most Asian and White applicants.The complaint also alleges that Yale injures applicants and students because Yale’s race discrimination relies upon and reinforces damaging race-based stereotypes, including in particular such stereotypes against Yale’s racially-favored applicants. And, the complaint alleges that Yale engages in racial balancing by, among other things, keeping the annual percentage of African-American admitted applicants to within one percentage point of the previous year’s admitted class as reflected in U.S. Department of Education data. The complaint alleges similar racial balancing about Asian-American applicants.The department’s complaint alleges that Yale’s race and national origin discrimination violate Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The lawsuit is the result of a multi-year investigation into allegations of illegal discrimination contained in a complaint filed by Asian American groups concerning Yale’s conduct.
You can read the Complaint here.
The focus on Yale admissions got started back in August. At the time, Professor Jacobson noted:
We constantly hear that there is systemic racism in higher education. That’s true, except not in the way propagandized.The last existing systemic racism in higher ed takes place in the admissions process at elite institutions, in order to achieve a racial mix preferred by administrators and activists. The primary victims of such practices are people of Asian descent.We saw this in the recent Harvard trial, which is now up on appeal (oral argument scheduled September 16, 2020). Harvard’s primary defense was not that it didn’t discriminate against Asians, which was statistically irrefutable, but that such discrimination was legally permitted as part of a larger educational goal of “diversity.” Harvard drove its discriminatory truck through a small opening the U.S. Supreme Court has created that permits race to be considered in admissions so long as it is just one of many factors and not tantamount to a quota system.The U.S. Department of Justice sided with the Asian-American plaintiffs in the Harvard case. Harvard prevailed at trial based on fuzzy explanations about a wholistic admissions process. That harkens back to the wholistic approach pionered by Harvard a century ago to limit the number of Jews. I’d be surprised if the Harvard case didn’t eventually end up at the Supreme Court.The Justice Department now is focusing on Yale University, issuing a finding that Yale Illegally Discriminates Against Asians and Whites in Undergraduate Admissions in Violation of Federal Civil-Rights Laws:
The Department of Justice today notified Yale University of its findings that Yale illegally discriminates against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions process in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The findings are the result of a two-year investigation in response to a complaint by Asian American groups concerning Yale’s conduct.“There is no such thing as a nice form of race discrimination,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division. “Unlawfully dividing Americans into racial and ethnic blocs fosters stereotypes, bitterness, and division. It is past time for American institutions to recognize that all people should be treated with decency and respect and without unlawful regard to the color of their skin.
It’ll be fascinating to see what comes of the case against Yale.
Surely, they believe they’re far too woke to be at fault.
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