The Department of Justice has formally accused Duke University's law school of intentionally discriminating against white and Asian applicants by using race as an admissions factor, a practice the Supreme Court banned two years ago.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon issued a findings letter Thursday concluding that Duke Law School violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law that bars racial discrimination by institutions receiving federal funding. The compliance review covered admissions for the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025, a span that includes cycles both before and after the Supreme Court's landmark 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively ended affirmative action in higher education.

The DOJ's findings letter determined that Duke Law School "intentionally discriminated based on race" and that its admissions process "bolstered the prospects of black and Hispanic applicants" at the expense of others. Dhillon wrote that the school's practices led to "highly qualified white, Asian, and other students" being "denied admission on the basis of their race," the Washington Examiner reported.

Diversity essays served as a racial sorting tool, DOJ alleges

One of the sharpest details in the DOJ's case concerns how Duke allegedly continued to weigh race even after the Supreme Court closed the front door. Dhillon pointed to the school's use of "diversity" essay questions, which the department says functioned as a mechanism to identify applicants by race and then favor certain groups in the admissions process.

That accusation goes beyond a claim of sloppy compliance. It describes a deliberate workaround, using facially neutral criteria as proxies for the racial preferences the Court struck down. AP News reported that the DOJ also flagged first-generation college student status as another proxy factor Duke used to maintain racial diversity in its incoming classes.

The findings letter cited a "significant disparity in objective academic metrics between black and Hispanic applicants compared with applicants from other racial categories." Breitbart reported that in admissions cycles for 2024 and 2025, median LSAT scores of rejected white and Asian applicants exceeded median scores of admitted Black applicants at Duke Law.

That statistic alone should stop any fair-minded reader. If the school was rejecting applicants with higher test scores while admitting applicants with lower scores from preferred racial groups, the word for that is not "holistic review." It is discrimination, the exact kind the Civil Rights Act was written to prevent.

Dhillon puts law schools on notice

Dhillon did not hold back in her public statement. She framed the case as a direct warning to elite institutions that believe they can quietly preserve the old racial preference system under new labels.

Dhillon has taken similar action before, including a finding that UC Davis Medical School used race-based admissions in defiance of the same Supreme Court ruling.

"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 DOJ is now seeking a "voluntary resolution agreement" with Duke to bring the school into compliance with Title VI. The findings letter did not specify a deadline for Duke to respond, nor did it detail what consequences the school would face if it refuses to cooperate.

Duke's response was measured but noncommittal. A university spokesperson told the Washington Examiner:

"We are 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."

That statement neither accepted nor denied the DOJ's findings. It left open whether the school plans to contest the conclusions, negotiate a settlement, or quietly change its practices.

A broader crackdown on institutions defying the Court's ruling

Duke is not an isolated case. The DOJ under the Trump administration has made clear that it views the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions decision as binding, and enforceable, across every institution that receives federal money. In June, Dhillon announced that the department would investigate 15 additional medical schools over alleged race-based discrimination in their admissions processes.

Yale University and UCLA's medical school have also been targeted in similar actions. The pattern suggests the DOJ is building a systematic enforcement campaign, not filing one-off complaints. Institutions that assumed the Supreme Court ruling would go unenforced, or that proxy workarounds would survive scrutiny, are learning otherwise.

The broader context matters. When the Court ruled in 2023 that race-conscious admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause, critics warned that universities would simply find new ways to achieve the same racial outcomes. The Duke case suggests those warnings were well-founded. If "diversity essays" and "first-generation status" are being used not as genuine measures of an applicant's background but as racial sorting tools, then the spirit of the Court's decision is being violated even when the letter is nominally observed.

The Trump DOJ has shown a willingness to enforce the law against institutions across the board. That same posture has extended beyond higher education, the department recently warned election officials in all 50 states about noncitizen voting enforcement and has pursued federal prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center over allegations of donor deception.

Numbers tell the story Duke won't

Strip away the legal language and the core accusation is straightforward. Black and Hispanic applicants were "much more likely to be admitted than white or Asian applicants with the same academic credentials," according to the DOJ's findings. Rejected white and Asian applicants had higher median LSAT scores than admitted Black applicants in at least two of the three admissions cycles reviewed.

Duke Law School is one of the most selective in the country. Applicants who are turned away from schools at that level often have strong credentials. When those rejected applicants have objectively stronger academic profiles than admitted applicants from different racial groups, the admissions office has explaining to do, and "we're reviewing the letter carefully" does not meet the moment.

The DOJ's findings letter did not detail every piece of evidence underlying its conclusions, and Duke has not yet offered a substantive defense. Several important questions remain open: What specific essay prompts did Duke use, and how were responses scored? Did admissions officers receive explicit guidance to weigh racial identity? And what happens if Duke refuses to negotiate a voluntary compliance agreement?

Those answers may emerge in the weeks ahead. But the DOJ has already laid down a marker. Elite institutions do not get to treat a Supreme Court ruling as a suggestion, and they do not get to rename racial preferences and call them something else.

Equal treatment under the law is not a partisan position. It is the law. Duke can comply, or it can fight, but the days of quiet defiance appear to be over.