US Justice Department Finds Yale University Illegally Discriminated Against Asian American and White Applicants In Admission

A two-year long investigation b U.S Department of Justice has found that Yale University violated federal civil rights law by illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions process, NPR reported.

"The Department of Justice found Yale discriminates based on race and national origin in its undergraduate admissions process, and that race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year," the department said in a release.

In a letter to the college’s attorneys Thursday, the justice department said that Yale “rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race, whom it otherwise would admit.”

“Yale’s race discrimination imposes undue and unlawful penalties on racially-disfavored applicants, including in particular Asian American and White applicants,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband, the head of the department’s civil rights division noted .

The investigation found that Asian American and white students have “only one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials,” the Justice Department said.

Yale uses race as a factor in multiple steps of its admissions process and also “racially balances its classes,” the department said.

“Unlawfully dividing Americans into racial and ethnic blocs fosters stereotypes, bitterness, and division,” Dreiband said. “It is past time for American institutions to recognize that all people should be treated with decency and respect and without unlawful regard to the color of their skin.”

The Justice Department is now demanding that Yale agree not to use race or national origin in its upcoming 2020-2021 admissions cycle. It also gives Yale an opportunity to propose a "narrowly tailored" plan for using race in future admissions cycles, pending Justice Department approval.

NPR quoted a Yale spokesperson as saying that the university "categorically denies this allegation."

"At Yale, we look at the whole person when selecting whom to admit among the many thousands of highly qualified applicants," the statement said. "We take into consideration a multitude of factors, including their academic achievement, interests, demonstrated leadership, background, success in taking maximum advantage of their secondary school and community resources, and the likelihood that they will contribute to the Yale community and the world."

The Justice Department has also previously accused Harvard University of having discriminatory admissions practices, though a federal judge ruled in 2019 that the school had not discriminated against Asian American applicants.