BUZZ
Federal investigation links race-based admissions practices to university’s ‘diversity’ goals
A U.S. Department of Justice investigation determined this week that the University of California Berkeley School of Law is “deliberately” discriminating against white and Asian student applicants.
On Wednesday, the department announced its findings against the public university, citing the 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which determined that university race-based admissions practices violate students’ civil rights.
“Berkeley Law School’s deliberate efforts to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA demonstrate a complete disregard for the rule of law,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon stated in a news release. She leads the department’s Civil Rights Division.
“The Department will continue to aggressively pursue compliance from schools who attempt to racially manipulate their student bodies in violation of federal law,” Dhillon stated.
The department found that Berkeley Law is violating applicants’ civil rights after comparing admissions data over the past five years with students’ races and their LSAT scores, according to the news release.
Through the investigation, in partnership with the Department of Education, the Justice Department found “a strong bias against Asian and white applicants” as well as a propensity to admit black applicants.
“In 2025, black applicants had 5.8 times higher odds of admission than comparable white applicants with similar qualifications,” the investigation found.
The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, reports more:
The letter quotes a video of [law Dean Erwin] Chemerinsky telling students in one of his classes that the law school may consider race and diversity in hiring, but may not express those opinions.
“Any time somebody says, you know, we should really prefer this candidate over this candidate, because this person would add to diversity — don’t say that,” Chemerinsky said in the video. “You can think it, you can vote it, but our discussions are not privileged, so don’t ever articulate that that’s what you’re doing!”
Chemerinsky denied that Berkeley Law considers race in admissions.
“Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way in admissions decisions,” he wrote in a statement to The Daily Californian. “Proposition 209, federal statutes, and the Supreme Court’s decisions do not preclude schools from pursuing diversity so long as they give no preferences based on race. Berkeley Law does not do so.”
Other investigation findings include that “Berkeley’s application asked applicants to specify their racial identity, so that admitted students could be ‘grouped’ with others of the same ‘primary identity’ in class. In other words, Berkeley Law intentionally separates admitted students by race.”
The law school also uses “essay prompts” and other means by which to discriminate based on race, according to the investigation.
Its motivation: “admissions diversity goals,” the department claims.
As to potential recourses, the department stated that it “will engage in settlement negotiations to ensure the school’s admissions practices are brought into compliance. If those efforts fail, the Department will file suit.”
Responding to the announcement, university spokesperson Dan Mogulof told the student newspaper that UC Berkeley is prepared to defend itself.
“UC Berkeley is committed to ensuring that every student is admitted based on their merit, and not on their race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin,” Mogulof stated. “UC Berkeley will spare no effort to provide ample evidence showing that the university complies with all relevant laws, policies and rules governing admissions.”
Over the past several months, the Justice Department has found that several other universities also discriminated based on race in admissions, including George Washington University, UCLA, Yale School of Medicine, and the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
MORE: Feds target alleged racial preferences in new wave of medical school probes
