By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-10 02:50:05 | Updated at 2026-09-10 03:28:11
56 minutes ago
A federal civil rights investigation into the University of California, Berkeley Law School found the school allegedly discriminated against white and Asian students in its admissions process, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Sept. 9.
The law school’s admissions requirements allegedly used race, essay prompts, and other tactics to further its diversity goals, according to a DOJ statement. The university denied the allegations.
The DOJ and the Department of Education’s probe uncovered evidence showing the school’s conduct violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination on the basis of race or color, according to the statement.
Federal investigators said the alleged admissions requirements also violate a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which found that race-based college admissions programs violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Berkeley Law School’s alleged effort to circumvent this decision “demonstrates a complete disregard for the rule of law,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
The department offered to work with the law school to bring its admissions process into compliance. If efforts fail, federal civil rights prosecutors will file a lawsuit against the law school, according to the DOJ.
Federal authorities said their investigation showed the law school demonstrated a “strong bias against Asian and white applicants, with a corresponding bias in favor of black applicants.”
In 2024 and 2025, half of the law school’s admitted black applicants had law school admission test scores that were below 95 percent of the admitted white applicants, while more than one-third of admitted black applicants had test scores below 99 percent of admitted white applicants, the DOJ reported.
Black applicants had nearly six times higher chances of being admitted than comparable white applicants last year, the DOJ’s analysis found.
Berkeley’s Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky denied the findings, saying the school followed state and federal laws, and the Supreme Court decision, which allows schools to pursue diversity “so long as they give no preferences based on race.”
“University of California, Berkeley School of Law in its admissions decisions scrupulously complies with [California’s] Proposition 209, federal statutes, and the United States Constitution,” Chemerinsky said in a statement the school provided to The Epoch Times. “Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way in admissions decisions.”
Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for communications and public affairs for UC Berkeley’s Central Administration, said the university would “spare no effort” to provide federal authorities with evidence that it complied with all laws, policies, and rules governing admissions.
“Since its passage in 1996, UC Berkeley and its various schools and colleges, have scrupulously abided by the California constitutional amendment (also known as Proposition 209) that prohibits the university from considering race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin when it comes to admissions or employment,” Mogulof said in a statement. “UC 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.”
The investigation, which started in March 2025, found that Chemerinsky defended affirmative action starting the day after the Supreme Court decision in 2023 in multiple published opinion articles and a video.
Some of Chemerinsky’s writings and video statements laid out what the DOJ said were plans showing how schools could evade the ruling.
“Admission practices like these have been rejected by the Supreme Court as unlawful discrimination,” the DOJ wrote in the notice sent to the Berkeley Law School. “Chemerinsky knew his practices were crossing the line.”
The investigation also allegedly found the school’s application form used essays as a backdoor to solicit applicants’ race by asking how they would “contribute diversity in our classrooms and community.”
Applicants were also asked how they could feel supported when in a group with other students who share an identity, and then asked which group from a list of racial identifications they would consider to be their primary identity for their group, according to the notice.
The law school received federal funding, which requires agencies to advise universities when they fail to comply with civil rights laws, the DOJ said.
If the Berkeley Law School doesn’t work with the federal agencies to voluntarily correct its admissions practices, it may be compelled to comply through enforcement, according to the Justice Department’s
notice.
The DOJ concluded the school’s alleged discrimination was ongoing.
“Having determined that Berkeley Law deliberately discriminated on the basis of race in its decisions to admit and deny applicants, and refused to comply with requests for compliance information, the Department seeks to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with the University to ensure that admissions and oversight practices are brought into legal compliance,” Dhillon said in the notice.
