The Department of Justice has formally accused Duke University School of Law of intentionally discriminating against white and Asian applicants in its admissions process, a finding that signals the federal government's broadening crackdown on race-based preferences in higher education.
The DOJ issued a findings letter concluding that Duke Law School violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal statute that bars racial discrimination in programs receiving federal funding. The compliance review covered admissions for the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025, and found that the school's process systematically bolstered the prospects of Black and Hispanic applicants at the expense of other racial groups, the Washington Examiner reported.
The findings letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, described "highly qualified white, Asian, and other students" being "denied admission on the basis of their race." The DOJ also identified a "significant disparity in objective academic metrics between black and Hispanic applicants compared with applicants from other racial categories", language that points to measurable gaps in test scores or grades between admitted students of different races.
One of the more pointed accusations in the findings letter targets Duke Law School's use of "diversity" essay questions. The DOJ concluded that these prompts functioned as a mechanism to identify applicants of preferred races, effectively allowing admissions staff to sort candidates by racial background under the cover of an open-ended writing exercise.
That practice continued even after the Supreme Court's landmark 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which declared the use of race in college admissions illegal and effectively ended affirmative action in higher education. The DOJ's review suggests Duke Law School found workarounds rather than compliance.
Dhillon did not hold back in her public statement on the matter:
"Duke Law School doesn't get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions. Using 'diversity' essay questions to identify preferred races for admission is still illegal discrimination based on race, and this Department is committed to eliminating it everywhere we find it, including in our nation's law schools."
The statement frames the investigation as part of a broader enforcement campaign, not an isolated case. And the DOJ's track record backs that up. The department previously found UC Davis Medical School guilty of race-based discrimination, and in June, Dhillon announced investigations into 15 additional medical schools over similar allegations.
Duke University's response was measured to the point of opacity. A spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the school is "reviewing the letter and its conclusions carefully."
"Duke is committed to complying with the law and will continue to do so in a manner that is consistent with our academic mission."
The statement neither disputed the DOJ's findings nor acknowledged any wrongdoing. It did not address the specific accusation that essay questions were used to identify applicants by race. It did not say whether the school had changed its admissions practices since the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling. And it did not indicate whether Duke intends to cooperate with the DOJ's request for a voluntary resolution agreement, the mechanism the department is using to bring the school into compliance with Title VI.
That kind of non-answer is familiar in institutional crisis management. It buys time without conceding ground. But it also leaves the central question unanswered: Did Duke Law School knowingly continue to sort applicants by race after the nation's highest court said that practice was unconstitutional?
The DOJ's findings letter says yes. The school's silence on specifics does nothing to refute it. The federal government has shown increasing willingness to hold institutions accountable for conduct that crosses legal lines, as seen in recent congressional referrals to the DOJ on other matters of institutional integrity.
Duke is not the first elite institution to face this kind of federal scrutiny, and it will not be the last. The DOJ's investigation of UC Davis Medical School and its announcement of 15 more medical school probes suggest a deliberate strategy: move methodically through the most prestigious programs in the country and force compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling.
The logic is straightforward. If the nation's top law and medical schools continue to use race as a factor, whether overtly or through essay-prompt proxies, then the Students for Fair Admissions decision becomes a dead letter. Enforcement is the only thing that gives a court ruling teeth.
And the schools being targeted are not obscure community colleges. They are the gatekeepers to the most powerful professions in the country. A law degree from Duke opens doors to federal clerkships, white-shoe firms, and government appointments. When those admissions decisions are tainted by racial preferences, the consequences ripple outward for decades, into courtrooms, boardrooms, and public institutions staffed by graduates who were selected, in part, on the basis of skin color rather than merit.
The broader accountability push extends beyond education. Federal authorities have pursued criminal cases against political insiders and confronted alleged misconduct by federal judges, all part of a larger pattern of demanding that powerful institutions follow the same rules as everyone else.
The DOJ's findings cover three consecutive admissions cycles, the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025. That span matters. It means this was not a one-time lapse or a bureaucratic oversight. If the DOJ's conclusions hold, Duke Law School maintained a discriminatory admissions regime across multiple years, through multiple review committees, and past a Supreme Court ruling that should have ended the practice outright.
The compliance review did not produce specific numerical data in the publicly available reporting, no exact test-score gaps, no admission-rate breakdowns by race. But the DOJ's characterization of a "significant disparity in objective academic metrics" between Black and Hispanic applicants and applicants from other racial groups is a factual claim rooted in data the department reviewed. The full findings letter, available through the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, presumably contains more granular detail.
Several questions remain unanswered. What specific changes, if any, did Duke make to its admissions process after the 2023 Supreme Court ruling? What were the exact essay prompts the DOJ flagged as racial sorting tools? What terms is the DOJ seeking in its voluntary resolution agreement, and what happens if Duke refuses to sign?
Those gaps will likely narrow as the case develops. But the core finding is already on the record: a federal compliance review concluded that one of the country's most prestigious law schools broke the law by discriminating against applicants on the basis of race.
Elite institutions have long treated diversity mandates as a higher calling that justified bending, or breaking, the rules. The DOJ's message is blunt: good intentions do not override the law. When universities decide which students deserve a seat based on the color of their skin, they are not advancing justice. They are practicing the very discrimination the Civil Rights Act was written to stop.