Yale Sued By DOJ For Discrimination In Undergraduate Admissions

NEW HAVEN, CT —The Justice Department filed suit against Yale University for race and national origin discrimination, it announced in a media release.

The DOJ complaint alleges that Yale discriminated against applicants to Yale College on the grounds of race and national origin, and that Yale’s discrimination imposes undue and unlawful penalties on racially-disfavored applicants, including in particular most Asian and White applicants.

The complaint also alleges that Yale injures applicants and students because Yale’s race discrimination relies upon and reinforces damaging race-based stereotypes, including in particular such stereotypes against Yale’s racially-favored applicants. And, the complaint alleges that Yale engages in racial balancing by, among other things, keeping the annual percentage of African-American admitted applicants to within one percentage point of the previous year’s admitted class as reflected in U.S. Department of Education data. The complaint alleges similar racial balancing about Asian-American applicants.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong says,"This lawsuit is as baseless as it is offensive, and every aspect of it demonstrates complete and utter overreach. My office is exploring all legal avenues to support Yale University and its students."

The department’s complaint alleges that Yale’s race and national origin discrimination violate Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The lawsuit is the result of a multi-year investigation into allegations of illegal discrimination contained in a complaint filed by Asian American groups concerning Yale’s conduct.

Justice claims Yale "refused to agree to the Department of Justice’s demand that Yale refrain from using race or national origin in its current 2020-2021 undergraduate admissions cycle. Yale also failed or refused ever to end its use of race in admissions, and Yale declined even to propose any changes to its pervasive use of race."

Justice said it notified Yale that "efforts at voluntary compliance had failed and filed suit."

But Yale president Peter Salovey said in a statement Thursday, echoing similar remarks he made in August when the Justice Department first put the university on notice, that Yale has "provided DOJ with information showing that this allegation is based on inaccurate statistics and unfounded conclusions, such as DOJ’s claim that the proportion of various racial groups admitted to Yale has remained stable for many years."

"In fact, in the last two decades, the percentage of admitted applicants fluctuated significantly for all groups. Despite our efforts to correct these misconceptions and the fact that Yale’s undergraduate admissions practices are perfectly consistent with decades of Supreme Court precedent, tonight DOJ filed a lawsuit against our university," Salovey said.

"I want to be clear: Yale does not discriminate against applicants of any race or ethnicity. Our admissions practices are completely fair and lawful," Salovey said. "Yale’s admissions policies will not change as a result of the filing of this baseless lawsuit. We look forward to defending these policies in court."

Tong took to Twitter to blast the DOJ action.

"The Department of Justice action deviates starkly from decades of well-established legal precedent and threatens to disrupt admissions practices at hundreds of universities nationwide," he wrote.

"As an Asian-American, this action is deeply offensive," Tong wrote. "It is shamefully ironic that this Administration purportedly seeks to take up the cause of Asian-American students after spending months actively inciting violence and hatred against the Asian-American community."

Tong wrote that the action by Justice is politically motivated and racist.

"The timing and motivations behind this lawsuit are clear—to foment more hate and division on the eve of an election," Tong tweeted. "This Administration has fully embraced its racist mantle as the last gasp of this failing Presidency."