investigation<\/a> into multiple UC campuses\u2019 admissions practices, which began March 27, 2025, as part of a campaign by President Donald Trump\u2019s second administration to put pressure on institutions of higher education.<\/p>\nThe finding letter, signed by Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ\u2019s Civil Rights Division, alleges that Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky knowingly encouraged the consideration of race in admissions in violation of federal civil rights law.<\/p>\n
The letter quotes a video of Chemerinsky telling students in one of his classes that the law school may consider race and diversity in hiring, but may not express those opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time somebody says, you know, we should really prefer this candidate over this candidate, because this person would add to diversity \u2014 don\u2019t say that,\u201d Chemerinsky said in the video. \u201cYou can think it, you can vote it, but our discussions are not privileged, so don\u2019t ever articulate that that\u2019s what you\u2019re doing!\u201d<\/p>\n
Chemerinsky denied that Berkeley Law considers race in admissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way in admissions decisions,\u201d he wrote in a statement to The Daily Californian. \u201cProposition 209, federal statutes, and the Supreme Court\u2019s decisions do not preclude schools from pursuing diversity so long as they give no preferences based on race. Berkeley Law does not do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DOJ also alleges in the finding letter that Berkeley Law asks questions on its applications intended to collect racial information about applicants.<\/p>\n
One question highlighted in the letter asks students to identify their race because some students \u201cfeel supported when grouped with other students with whom they share a primary identity.\u201d Another asks applicants to write about how they will \u201ccontribute diversity in our classrooms and community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many universities adopted these kinds of diversity-oriented questions for applications after the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in 2023. Campus spokespeople did not answer a question about what the Berkeley Law application questions are intended for.<\/p>\n
The DOJ and Department of Education have amplified their efforts in recent months to crack down on what they see as discriminatory admissions practices \u2014 particularly against white and Asian applicants \u2014 using statistics around GPAs and LSAT and MCAT scores.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the DOJ also determined UCLA and UC San Diego\u2019s medical schools to have discriminated in admissions, citing lower MCAT scores and GPAs among admitted students of color than their white peers.<\/p>\n
Campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof pushed back on claims that UC Berkeley had not complied with civil rights law.<\/p>\n
\u201cUC Berkeley is committed to ensuring that every student is admitted based on their merit, and not on their race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin,\u201d he wrote in an email. \u201cUC Berkeley will spare no effort to provide ample evidence showing that the university complies with all relevant laws, policies and rules governing admissions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mogulof did not directly respond to a question about how campus would respond to the findings.<\/p>\n
As a result of the investigation, the government is seeking to enter into an agreement with the university to \u201censure that admissions and oversight practices are brought into legal compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the latest strike against college admissions practices, the U.S. Department of Justice\u2019s Civil Rights Division and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9419,26704,14760,19442,1054,75196,17423,181021,181022,143,145,144,89862,2214],"class_list":["post-458935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-berkeley-law","tag-civil-rights-division","tag-dan-mogulof","tag-department-of-education","tag-doj","tag-erwin-chemerinsky","tag-harmeet-dhillon","tag-lsat","tag-mcat","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-proposition-209","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}