#Yale illegally discriminates against white, Asian applicants: DOJ

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The Yale University campus
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Yale University is illegally discriminating against Asian and white applicants in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Justice Department said Thursday.

The agency said a two-year investigation into the Ivy League school found that Asian and white applicants have “one-tenth to one-fourth” the chance of being admitted as African American applicants with the same credentials.

Officials formally levied the charges in a letter to Yale lawyers Thursday, asserting that the school “rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race, whom it would otherwise admit.”

“There is no such thing as a nice form of race discrimination,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband said in a statement.

“Yale’s race discrimination imposes undue and unlawful penalties on racially-disfavored applicants, including in particular Asian American and White applicants.”

The Justice Department ordered Yale to cease using race in admissions for next year and said it must submit a proposal if it plans to do so in the future.

Dreiband said Yale is bound to comply with the Civil Rights Act as a recipient of “millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.”

“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 Supreme Court has found that colleges can factor race into admissions, but that it must be limited in scope and duration. Dreiband said that Yale has exceeded those limitations.

“Yale uses race at multiple steps of its admissions process resulting in a multiplied effect of race on an applicant’s likelihood of admission, and Yale racially balances its classes,” the DOJ said.

In a statement, Yale said it “categorically denies this allegation” and accused the feds of drawing conclusions before getting all the facts.

“Given our commitment to complying with federal law, we are dismayed that the DOJ has made its determination before allowing Yale to provide all the information the Department has requested thus far,” the university said in a statement.

“Had the Department fully received and fairly weighed this information, it would have concluded that Yale’s practices absolutely comply with decades of Supreme Court precedent.”

The university insisted it considers many factors and looks at “the whole person when selecting whom to admit among the many thousands of highly qualified applicants.”

The Justice Department made the same accusation against Harvard University after Asian applicants filed a lawsuit against the school asserting discrimination.

A federal judge dismissed that charge in 2019 and the ruling is being appealed.

With Post wires