U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said Aug. 6 that the Department of Justice found that one of America’s most elite private law schools intentionally denied admission to higher-achieving students to advance its racial diversity goals.
For the incoming classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025, Duke University Law’s applications asked candidates how they would further the school’s mission to equal justice, public service, and a “diversity of perspectives and experience.” Reviewers in the school’s admissions office were asked to place “diversity/services” tags on applications containing information commonly correlated with race, such as being a Pell Grant recipient, according to an Aug. 6 statement from the Department of Justice.
Investigators with the federal agency found that the essay questions and application fields where candidates would note Pell grants were used as proxies for identifying minority candidates. They also found that the median LSAT scores of rejected white and Asian applicants exceeded the median LSAT scores of admitted black applicants.
Discrimination based on race in higher education admissions is prohibited under federal civil rights laws. A 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Asian students who sued Harvard University and the University of North Carolina because they were denied admission based on their race reaffirms those laws.
“Duke Law School doesn’t get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions,” Dhillon said in the statement. “Using ‘diversity’ essay questions to identify preferred races for admissions is still illegal discrimination based on race, and this department is committed to eliminating it everywhere we find it, including in our nation’s law schools.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Duke University for a response.
In an Aug. 6 letter to the law school’s legal counsel, Dhillon said a review of internal communications in Duke Law’s admissions office reveals a pattern of discrimination dating back five years.
She noted a Duke Law report from the 2021–2022 academic year that stated the goal of increasing the next incoming class to 43 percent students of color, up from the previous four-year average of 34 percent. Moreover, the school issued guidance after the 2023 Supreme Court decision telling admissions office employees that Duke Law “may consider applicants’ discussion of how race affected their life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
Her letter also cites an email from William Hoye, Duke Law’s associate dean for admissions and student affairs.
“I’d prefer not to say that we will have to work harder to enroll a diverse class,” Hoye’s email says. “This is true, but I don’t want folks to think we didn’t work harder if/when the class is not as diverse as we would like.”
Under civil rights laws, the federal government can withhold funding from Duke.
Dhillon said her agency will continue to monitor Duke’s compliance on this matter. Where a violation has been found, she said, the Department of Justice will engage in settlement negotiations with the university to ensure the school’s admissions practices are brought into compliance under federal law. If those efforts fail, the agency will file a lawsuit.
