The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the University of California, Berkeley’s law school and Duke University’s School of Medicine intentionally discriminated against white and Asian applicants in admissions, in what marked the sixth and seventh admissions-discrimination findings the administration has issued since taking office.
The Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services released the findings jointly on September 9 and 10. The Departments of Justice and Education conducted the Berkeley investigation together; the Department of Health and Human Services conducted the Duke investigation on its own, marking the first admissions-discrimination letter that HHS has produced.
Federal officials said Duke administrators intentionally granted and denied admission to the medical school on the basis of an applicant’s race, and argued that internal Duke communications showed staff planning after the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions how to maintain student diversity by drawing on minority applicants’ discussion of hardship in their personal essays. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in that ruling that consideration of such essays was still permitted so long as an admissions office did not use them as a proxy for race.
The Berkeley finding accused the law school of similar conduct. Federal officials said the school’s admissions process advantaged Black, Hispanic, and Native American applicants and disadvantaged white and Asian applicants in ways that violated federal civil rights law. Berkeley officials disputed the finding and said the school followed the Supreme Court’s guidance.
The two findings arrive against a much larger backdrop. The administration has opened at least 29 admissions-discrimination investigations since taking office, and 27 of those investigations involve medical schools. Fifteen of the medical schools under investigation have not yet been named publicly. HHS said in its Duke letter that the department had directed nearly $3.5 billion in funding to Duke over the previous five years, a figure that establishes both the federal investment and the leverage the department can bring to a settlement or a funding action.
The Justice Department has separately taken enforcement steps against other prominent programs. In August the department issued a similar finding against Duke Law School, and it has announced settlements with other institutions that agreed to change their admissions practices without admitting wrongdoing. The findings carry no automatic penalty but typically trigger negotiations that can end in a consent decree, a settlement, or a referral to a funding agency for possible cuts.
The Berkeley Law and Duke Medicine findings apply to two of the most selective graduate programs in the country. Berkeley Law is a public flagship law school; Duke Medicine is a private research medical school that receives substantial federal training and research support through the National Institutes of Health. Depending on how each institution responds, the findings could reshape recruiting practices at professional schools well beyond the two campuses named.
The Association of American Medical Colleges and other higher-education groups have said publicly that medical schools continue to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision, and that they will need to see the actual internal communications the government cites to evaluate how much of the finding is grounded in documented practice and how much is inferred from post-decision policy discussions. Both universities have committed to reviewing the letters and responding formally to the government.
