The College Fix

Coalition files civil rights complaint questioning why Asian American enrollment is dropping

An Asian American coalition has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Yale University alleging discrimination using racial proxies during the 2023-2024 admission cycle.

The complaint, filed on April 22 by the Asian American Coalition for Education to the Office for Civil Rights under the U.S. Department of Education, alleges that Yale discriminated against Asian American applicants in its admissions process.

“Compelling evidence indicated that Yale University may have unlawfully employed race proxies to circumvent the Supreme Court’s SFFA rulings,” AACE President Yukong Zhao told The College Fix in a recent email.

In the complaint, the coalition asked the federal government to suspend funding to the university if Yale does not comply with the law and remove all race-based admission preferences and practices.

Swan Lee, a member of the Board of Directors for the coalition, told The Fix that Yale has not responded to their organization regarding the complaint or its allegations.

“We hope that the government will investigate into Yale’s admission process and compel them to follow federal law, and to not use race as a factor for consideration in the process,” Lee said. “It’s unconstitutional and illegal to discriminate based on race.”

The Fix contacted the university’s media relations office twice via email, asking about the complaint allegations, but did not receive a response.

The complaint comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which outlawed race-based considerations in college admissions.

The complaint states that many colleges have shown an increase in Asian enrollment since the court’s decision. However, the opposite was true at Yale.

Following the ruling, Asian student enrollment decreased about 20%, from 30% in 2023 to 24% in 2024, according to the complaint.

The complaint contrasts Yale’s enrollment numbers with those of other selective colleges those same years. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Asian student enrollment increased 15%, and, at Johns Hopkins University, it increased by 43%, according to the complaint.

The coalition also reviewed Yale’s admissions policy changes in response to the 2023 ruling, including its statement, “An Update on Yale College’s Response to the Supreme Court Ruling on Race in Admissions.”

In the statement, Yale said the college admission reviewers will “not have access to applicants’ self-identified race and/or ethnicity,” or “aggregate data on the racial or ethnic composition of the pool of applicants or admitted students.”

Upon analyzing the policy changes, however, the coalition said it discovered content that suggests Yale may have been using racial proxies in the college admission process to discriminate against Asian Americans, which violates students’ civil rights.

“Such discriminatory admission practices must be investigated and halted. AACE remains committed to monitoring compliance and ensuring that all applicable colleges adhere to the Supreme Court’s SFFA rulings with integrity,” Zhao told The Fix.

The coalition also cited the Trump administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter in February as an encouragement to file the complaint.

“The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” the Department of Education letter states.

Back in 2016, the coalition filed a similar civil rights complaint against Yale on behalf of more than 130 Asian American groups “alleging anti-Asian discrimination in its college admissions process.”

Yale faced a lawsuit as a result, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2023 should have settled the matter, according to the complaint.

However, the university’s recent decline in Asian enrollment “strongly suggests that the institution remains committed to its DEI ideology and race-based admissions,” the complaint states.

MORE: Gettysburg College effort to enroll ‘20% students of color’ prompts federal complaint

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Students walk on the Yale University campus. Helioscope/Shutterstock

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