The Justice Department is accusing Duke University School of Law of favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over White and Asian applicants with the same academic records in its admissions process, which the Trump administration argues the law school used to meet its "diversity goals.""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 of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions v.Harvard (SFFA) that it was unconstitutional for colleges and higher education institutions to consider a student's race in their admissions processes.
The decision prompted the Trump administration to open investigations into alleged race-based discrimination at dozens of colleges and universities.JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ZEROES IN ON UCLA FOR ALLEGED ILLEGAL DEI ADMISSIONS AS ELITE SCHOOL CRACKDOWN EXPANDSA photo of Duke University's west campus in Fall 202 (Duke University - Jared Lazarus)The Civil Rights Division, which began investigating Duke Law in April 2025, found that Black applicants who applied in 2025 had roughly 3.5 times the chance of admission as Asian applicants with the same academic credentials, according to a Justice Department letter sent to Duke Law.Investigators found that the median LSAT score for accepted Black applicants was lower than the median score for rejected Asian and White applicants."This consistent difference in the test scores between students of different racial groups is substantial and cannot be explained by a coincidence," the letter stated.
"The magnitude and durability of these preferences across multiple cycles (including post-SFFA) confirm intentional discrimination."The Trump administration’s review of internal communications found that the law school began preparing for the Supreme Court’s SFFA ruling so its admissions process could conti...