By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday that admissions practices at Yale University’s medical school were biased in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants, citing findings of a probe as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on diversity policies at colleges.
The Justice Department said it was seeking to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with the university. The Yale School of Medicine said it was confident in its “rigorous admissions process” and would carefully review the Justice Department’s letter.
Yale has previously said it does not discriminate in admissions against any racial or ethnic group.
Yale violated the law “by intentionally discriminating based on race in its admissions,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
“The investigation showed that, in general, Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted with consistently lower academic qualifications than their White and Asian counterparts,” the department said.
The Supreme Court rejected affirmative action at colleges and universities in 2023 when it struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department cited findings of a similar probe to say admissions practices at the University of California, Los Angeles’ medical school were biased in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants. UCLA’s medical school said its admissions practices “were based on merit and grounded in a rigorous, comprehensive review of each applicant.”
President Donald Trump, who casts diversity goals as anti-merit and as discriminatory against groups like white people and men, has signed executive orders to dismantle those policies in the government and private sector.
Civil rights advocates say diversity practices help address historic inequities for marginalized groups like women, the LGBT community and ethnic minorities.
Trump has targeted universities over a range of issues including diversity goals, climate initiatives, transgender policies and pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza. Rights advocates have raised concerns about academic freedom, free speech and due process.
The Trump administration has not yet directly attempted to cut Yale’s federal funding. Yale’s lobbying expenditures in 2025, when Trump returned to the White House, were $1.24 million, more than double what it spent in 2024, according to disclosures made earlier this year.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Jamie Freed)
