FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Department of Justice has found that the University of California, Berkeley School of Law illegally discriminated against Asian and white applicants based on race during its 2024 and 2025 admissions processes, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action.
“Berkeley Law School’s deliberate efforts to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision in [Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard] demonstrate a complete disregard for the rule of law,” said assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet K. Dhillon. “The department will continue to aggressively pursue compliance from schools who attempt to racially manipulate their student bodies in violation of federal law.”
The DOJ opened a compliance review into the University of California, Berkeley in March 2025 to determine if its admissions practices complied with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The investigation was expanded shortly after to include the university’s law school.
The findings reveal that Berkeley Law uses race, essay prompts, and other tactics to further its admissions diversity goals.
The DOJ is now seeking to enter a voluntary resolution agreement with the law school “to ensure that admissions and oversight practices are brought into legal compliance.”
The admissions application asked applicants to specify their racial identity, so that admitted students could be “grouped” with others of the same “primary identity” in class.
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“How will you (your perspective, experience, Voice) contribute diversity in our classrooms and community? Feel free to address any factors or attributes you consider important and relevant. In the past, applicants have included information about characteristics such as: race/ethnicity …, ” the application asks.
This is exactly what Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said colleges needed to do to maintain diversity quotas after the Students for Fair Admissions Ruling eliminated affirmative action.
“What colleges and universities will need to do after affirmative action is eliminated is find ways to achieve diversity that can’t be documented as violating the Constitution,” Chemerinsky said in a June 2023 article printed in the Los Angeles Times.
The DOJ also reviewed a video of Chemerinsky in 2020 admitting “unstated affirmative action” practices in faculty hiring.
“You can think it, you can vote it, but our discussions are not privileged, so don’t ever articulate that that’s what you’re doing!” he said.
The DOJ’s analysis of admissions data found highly statistically significant racial preferences in 2024 and 2025.
In 2025, black applicants had 5.8 times the odds of admission as comparable white applicants with similar qualifications. In 2024, a black applicant had 6.5 times the odds of admission as a comparable white applicant.
“The Department finds that Berkeley Law deliberately discriminated against Asian and white applicants based on race in its law school admissions. This discrimination is apparent from the significant disparity in objective academic metrics between racially preferred applicants, and applicants from non-preferred races,” the letter to Berkeley reads, adding that the discrimination is “ongoing.”
The DOJ will continue to investigate law schools’ compliance with Title VI.
“Where a violation has been found, the department will engage in settlement negotiations to ensure the school’s admissions practices are brought into compliance,” a press release obtained by the Daily Signal reads. “If those efforts fail, the department will file suit.”
Chemerinsky, the law school dean, told the Daily Signal that the Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t stop universities from pursuing diversity.
“University of California, Berkeley School of Law in its admissions decisions scrupulously complies with Proposition 209, federal statutes, and the United States Constitution,” he said in a statement. “Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way in admissions decisions. Proposition 209, federal statutes, and the Supreme Court’s decisions do not preclude schools from pursuing diversity so long as they give no preferences based on race. Berkeley Law does not do so.”
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