DOJ accuses Yale of illegally discriminating against Asian American applicants
Federal investigators say the university’s undergraduate admissions process violated federal civil rights law
By Andrew Peng, Shawna Chen, and Andrew Huang
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday accused Yale University of illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions process, in violation of federal civil rights law.
In a notification letter signed by Assistant Attorney General Eric Drieband, who leads the agency’s civil rights division, the Justice Department demanded that Yale agree not to use “race or national origin in its upcoming 2020–2021 undergraduate admissions cycle.”
Drieband cited the findings of a two-year investigation concerning the university’s conduct, which was spurred by a 2016 complaint filed against Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth by the Asian American Coalition for Education. The group is led by Orlando businessman and conservative activist Yukong Zhao, one of several Republican candidates vying to face Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida) in November.
“For the great majority of applicants, Asian Americans and whites have only one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “Yale rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race, whom it otherwise would admit.”
Yale President Peter Salovey slammed the Justice Department’s findings in a community-wide email and characterized its allegations as “baseless.”
“Given our university’s commitment to complying with federal law, I am dismayed that the DOJ inexplicably rushed to conclude its investigation without conducting a fully formed analysis, which would have shown that Yale’s practices absolutely comply with decades of Supreme Court precedent,” Salovey wrote. “Yale College will not change its admissions processes in response to today’s letter because the DOJ is seeking to impose a standard that is inconsistent with existing law.”
“At this unique moment in our history, when so much attention properly is being paid to issues of race, Yale will not waver in its commitment to educating a student body whose diversity is a mark of its excellence.”
The legal fight
Battles over the legality of affirmative action have roared back into public view across the country — thanks to the Trump administration’s public backing of groups seeking to scrap race-conscious admissions policies.
In October, Harvard University prevailed after a federal judge refused to strike down its admissions policies in a lawsuit that claimed discrimination against Asian Americans. But the closely-watched case could end up in the hands of a less-friendly Supreme Court, which could draw a different conclusion. The U.S. Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in March arguing that Harvard’s process “has repeatedly penalized one particular racial group: Asian Americans.”
A majority of Asian Americans are supportive of affirmative action, according to a 2018 survey conducted by APIAVote, and AAPI advocacy groups have maintained a strong defense of the policy, calling it necessary to increase access to education for historically underrepresented groups.
“This [case] is only the latest embrace of the model minority myth, weaponizing our oppression and pitting Asian-Americans against other people of color,” Lance Tran wrote in The Duke Chronicle in 2018. “We only stand to benefit when we stand together, and access to higher education is no different.”
But vocal groups of Chinese Americans have spearheaded efforts against race-conscious programs, claiming that affirmative action fuels discrimination against Asian applicants. Conservatives have historically organized on the Chinese-owned social media app WeChat, which the Trump administration appears poised to ban from the U.S.
According to AAPI Data, support for Asian Americans has remained “stable” since 2008, but perceptions of affirmative action vary across groups within the Asian American racial category and often depend on the framing of the question.
“When affirmative action is framed as increasing access to under-represented groups, it garners higher levels of support,” Janelle Wong, Jennifer Lee, and Van Tran wrote in an AAPI Data blog post in 2018. “When the policy is framed as increasing the number of underrepresented groups, it draws higher levels of opposition, perhaps because it invokes the idea of quotas, which have been ruled unconstitutional since 1978.”
This is not the first time an institution of higher education has been accused of discriminating against white people, either. Edward Blum, who directed the Harvard lawsuit efforts and has led similar campaigns claiming anti-white practices, worked most notably with white college student Abigail Fisher to sue the University of Texas for racial discrimination; the suit reached the Supreme Court twice and ended in defeat for Blum. The ACLU called Blum “the man who wants to kill affirmative action in higher education” in 2018.
This story was updated at 11:55pm EST on August 13, 2020.
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