Yale’s admissions policy intended to achieve equity among races, professor says
NEW HAVEN — The U.S. Justice Department is accusing Yale University of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but Yale’s admissions policies were created to achieve the goal of racial equity in higher education, according to a sociologist who has written about affirmative action.
“In so many ways, this entire investigation by the Department of Justice is perverse,” said Van C. Tran, associate professor of sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The aim of the Civil Rights Division should be to “encourage but also promote” policies that include racial balance in the student body.
“I think they should be cognizant of the fact that we have yet to achieve any measure of racial equity in this country,” Tran said.
On Thursday, the Justice Department notified Yale that it had determined the university discriminates against Asian-American and white students and in favor of other groups. Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband wrote in a letter to Yale, “Yale’s diversity goals appear to be vague, illusory, and amorphous. Yale’s use of race appears to be standardless, and Yale does virtually nothing to cabin, limit, or define its use of race during the Yale College admissions process.”
He threatened a lawsuit against the university if Yale continues to use race and national origin in its admissions policies. Yale responded by denying its policies violated the Civil Rights Act. “We are proud of Yale’s admissions practices, and we will not change them on the basis of such a meritless, hasty accusation,” spokeswoman Karen Peart said in a statement.
Tran said the Trump administration appears to be trying to dismantle affirmative action in college admissions, first by siding with a group of Asian-Americans who sued Harvard over its admissions policies. A federal judge upheld Harvard’s policy in October 2019. The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, have appealed the decision to the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
Legal observers have said the case could make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tran said that while quotas are unconstitutional, using race and ethnicity as a factor in admissions was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2003, in the case of Gutter v. Bollinger. Writing for the majority in a 5-4 decision, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that race could be considered in college admissions “because it prepares our students for lifelong work and service in very diverse settings, which is where our country is headed,” Tran said. He said Yale has a “holistic admission process,” in which race is one of a number of factors taken into account.
O’Connor wrote, “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” However, 17 years after Gutter v. Bollinger, achieving racial equality is “a work in progress, but I would say we are nowhere near where we need to be,” Tran said.
He said he was also struck by the Justice Department’s statement that “Yale’s race discrimination dates back more than four decades, to at least the 1970s,” when it appeared to base its decision on just 18 years of data. “Given that Yale claims that is has yet to be given the chance to submit all the evidence ... we are basically stuck in a he said/she said situation and that is confusing and it may be intentional by the Department of Justice,” Tran said.
The Civil Rights Act was intended to “promote, encourage and monitor” the efforts to bring equity to all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity or national origin. “That should be the spirit with which the department should approach these investigations,” Tran said. “But the letter today doesn’t reflect that spirit at all.”
Acknowledging his “deep skepticism about this entire administration,” Tran said, “Yale should be able to prove to the Justice Department that it is compliant with the spirit of the policy.”
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