The Department of Justice announced findings that Duke University’s law school engaged in intentional racial discrimination across three admissions cycles in violation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning race-based considerations in college admissions. This marks the first law school the DOJ has identified as violating the ruling, expanding beyond the department’s previous focus on medical schools, where investigations into at least 26 institutions have been initiated with discrimination findings announced at four.
In its letter to Duke Law, the DOJ cited internal institutional documents as evidence of discriminatory intent, including language in the school’s mission statement emphasizing commitment to diversity and guidance permitting application reviewers to consider how race affected an applicant’s life experiences. The department argued that Duke’s language went beyond what the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard permitted. However, Duke’s guidance language mirrors language in Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion in that case, which explicitly stated that universities may consider applicant discussions of how race affected their lives through discrimination or inspiration.
The DOJ also presented statistical evidence comparing standardized test scores and admission outcomes. According to the letter, Black and Hispanic admitted students had median LSAT scores in the 84.2nd and 95.1st percentiles respectively, compared to 97.1st percentile for white students and 97.9th percentile for Asian students in 2024. The department further argued that Black admitted applicants were approximately 3.5 times more likely to gain admission than Asian applicants with comparable credentials based on 2025 applicant-level data.
Educational experts have raised questions about the evidentiary standards underlying such determinations, noting that statistical analyses of standardized test scores alone are insufficient to establish discrimination and that the DOJ letters lack conventional evidence such as interviews with admissions personnel.
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