Justice Department Sues Yale over ‘Discrimination Against White and Asian American Applicants’

The US Justice Department has sued Yale University over alleged discrimination against white and Asian American applicants after it accused the university of ‘racially balancing’ its classes.

It comes about two months after the Justice Department publicly accused Yale of discrimination following a two year investigation, saying it was in violation of federal civil rights law.

Filed in US federal court in Connecticut, the lawsuit alleges Yale ‘discriminates based on race and national origin in its undergraduate admissions process, and that race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year’.

The department said its investigation found that Asian American and white students have ‘only one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials’.

{snip}

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.

{snip}

In August, the Justice Department demanded that Yale immediately stop and agree not to use race or national origin for upcoming admissions, but officials said the university refused.

The Supreme Court has ruled colleges and universities may consider race in admissions decisions but has said that must be done in a narrowly tailored way to promote diversity and should be limited in time.

{snip}