Overview
- The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced Thursday that its investigation concluded Duke University School of Law intentionally produced race-linked admission outcomes for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 entering classes.
- Investigators say Duke revised its mission and application after the 2023 Supreme Court ruling and then used short-answer essay prompts and reviewer ‘‘tags’’ to highlight applicant traits that can proxy for race, such as Pell grant status.
- The DOJ reported that those practices made Black and Hispanic applicants substantially more likely to be admitted than white and Asian applicants with similar credentials and that in 2024–2025 rejected white and Asian applicants had higher median LSATs than admitted Black applicants.
- The department sent a six-page findings letter and is seeking a voluntary resolution to bring Duke into compliance, will monitor other law schools that receive federal funds, and said it will file suit if settlement talks fail.
- The decision tests how schools can lawfully pursue diversity after the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions ruling and could prompt wider enforcement and policy changes that affect applicants, admissions staff, and law schools nationwide.