FILE-Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina on June 16, 2025. (Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Department of Justice is alleging that Duke University’s law school unlawfully considered race in admissions.
According to The Associated Press, DOJ officials in a findings letter to the university stated that while school administrators claimed to be race-neutral in admissions, they used other factors as substitutes for race, like personal essays and whether an individual was a first-generation college student.
RELATED: Judge blocks Trump-era push for college admissions race data collection
In its findings against Duke Law, the Department of Justice asserts that Black or Hispanic applicants were more likely to be admitted than white or Asian applicants with the same academic credentials.
Furthermore, the federal agency stated that in 2024 and 2025, the median Law School Admissions Test scores of rejected white and Asian applicants surpassed the median scores of admitted Black applicants, the AP reported.
Duke University responds to Justice Department accusations
What they're saying:
Duke University provided an emailed statement to The Associated Press commenting that it was reviewing the letter and is committed to following the law "in a manner that is consistent with our academic mission."
The other side:
"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 K. Dhillon of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division said in a news release, cited by the AP. "Using ‘diversity’ essay questions to identify preferred races for admission is still illegal discrimination based on race."
RELATED: Trump orders universities to hand over college admissions data on race
In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, ruling that race can’t be a factor, while forcing educational institutions to consider new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.
This same ruling stated that colleges may continue to evaluate how student applicants’ backgrounds might speak to general characteristics, but President Donald Trump has accused colleges of using other alternatives to maintain racial diversity.
According to the AP, the Trump administration has targeted undergraduate admissions at selective colleges, demanding they gather data to demonstrate how the educational institutions are complying with the Supreme Court ruling.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, which references a findings letter from the Department of Justice and a statement from Duke University. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.