BUZZ
Admissions staff ‘tag’ responses related to ‘diversity’
Duke University School of Law violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by intentionally discriminating based on race in admissions, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in admission, the school updated its mission statement to emphasize “diversity of perspective and experience,” according to the department’s news release.
When students applied, they were given short-answer essay questions where they discussed how they fit that goal. Administrators told staff to “tag” responses related to diversity and other factors often linked to race.
“Thus, while Duke Law’s published policies assert that admissions reviewers did not see racial demographic data, Duke Law directed its admissions staff to highlight applicant information that could be used to advance Duke Law’s racial diversity goal,” the news release states.
The department found that black and Hispanic applicants were far more likely to be admitted than white or Asian applicants with the same credentials.
Further, rejected white and Asian applicants had higher median LSAT scores than admitted black students in 2024 and 2025.
“Duke Law School doesn’t get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.
“Using ‘diversity’ essay questions to identify preferred races for admission 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,” she said.
The DOJ also recently found that the University of California, Davis School of Medicine openly “skirted” the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action, The College Fix previously reported.
“To admit more so-called ‘underrepresented minorities,’ Davis Med created the ‘Davis Scale,’ which ranks an applicant based upon perceived ‘disadvantages’ while strategically adjusting the impact of his or her GPA and MCAT scores,” a June news release from the department states.
In May, the DOJ found that Yale School of Medicine also “intentionally selected applicants based on their race.”
On average, black and Hispanic applicants were admitted with significantly lower academic qualifications than white and Asian applicants.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education is investigating dozens of universities for “race-exclusionary practices” in their graduate programs.
The universities have been accused of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act through partnerships with “The Ph.D. Project,” a nonprofit that aims to provide students of certain races with networking opportunities.
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