You’d think, of all places, a law school would understand that a Supreme Court ruling isn’t a suggestion. You’d think the very institution charged with shaping tomorrow’s attorneys would model what it means to respect the highest court in the land. But apparently, when the ruling threatens a sacred cow, even legal scholars suddenly develop reading comprehension problems. I wish I were exaggerating.
In 2023, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, declaring race-based college admissions unconstitutional. The ruling was unambiguous. Schools could no longer sort applicants by skin color and call it enlightenment. The Trump administration, to its credit, didn’t treat the decision as a trophy to collect dust — it launched investigations into dozens of institutions suspected of quietly defying the ruling.
One of those investigations just landed with a thud on the doorstep of one of America’s most prestigious institutions. Want to guess which bastion of legal excellence decided the Supreme Court’s opinion was merely a suggestion?
The Department of Justice has accused Duke University School of Law of systematically discriminating against White and Asian applicants across three consecutive admissions cycles. The numbers aren’t subtle. According to the DOJ’s findings, Black applicants in the 2025 cycle had roughly 3.5 times the probability of admission as Asian applicants with comparable academic credentials. In both 2024 and 2025, the median LSAT scores of rejected White and Asian applicants were higher than those of admitted Black applicants.
From Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon:
“Duke Law School doesn’t get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions. Using ‘diversity’ essay questions to identify preferred races for admission is still illegal discrimination based on race, and this Department is committed to eliminating it everywhere we find it, including in our nation’s law schools.”
The workaround
What makes Duke’s case particularly brazen is the paper trail. Internal communications show the law school began strategizing before the SFFA ruling even dropped, plotting how to preserve racial outcomes under a new legal reality. Their clever solution was a tagging system — admissions officers would flag diversity-themed essay responses as a proxy for race, even while the school officially barred reviewers from seeing applicants’ racial information. Neat trick.
One admissions official wrote that he didn’t want people to think the school “didn’t work harder” if an incoming class turned out less diverse. Another internal document described DEI as one of the school’s “most important values.” And in a 2025 memo, the admissions dean suggested the school could gauge its diversity by simply observing students on campus rather than compiling statistics. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
Duke’s public response? A masterpiece of corporate nothing — they’re “reviewing the letter carefully.” Somewhere, a communications intern earned their paycheck. Meanwhile, the DOJ has made clear it will sue if a voluntary settlement can’t be reached.
What this is really about
I’ll say what plenty of Americans are already thinking: every admissions slot handed out based on race is one denied to someone who earned it on merit. How is that not the very definition of discrimination? Calling it “diversity” doesn’t change what it is — it’s just prejudice wearing a nicer hat.
And when a law school decides the Supreme Court’s word doesn’t apply within its own walls, what exactly are they teaching their students about the rule of law? That it’s flexible when it’s inconvenient?
The DOJ is doing its job. The question now is whether Duke will do the right thing — or whether it’ll take a courtroom to remind these legal scholars that nobody is above the law. Not even the people who teach it.
Key Takeaways
- The DOJ found Duke Law gave Black applicants 3.5x the admission advantage over equally qualified Asian applicants.
- Duke deliberately designed workarounds to preserve race-based admissions after the Supreme Court banned them.
- Internal emails reveal DEI ideology drove admissions decisions over merit and legal compliance.
- The DOJ is prepared to sue — elite institutions are not above the law.
The post DOJ Accuses Duke Law School of Discriminating Against White and Asian Applicants Across Three Admissions Cycles, Threatens Lawsuit appeared first on Patriot Journal.
