Why the U.S. Is Threatening Yale Over Race and Admissions

America’s long struggle with affirmative action, part of an agonizing national reckoning with racism, took another twist when the U.S. Justice Department threatened to sue Yale University if it didn’t immediately stop using race as a factor in undergraduate admissions. The U.S. claims Yale violates federal civil rights law by making race and national origin “the determinative factor” in hundreds of admissions decisions each year, fostering “stereotypes, bitterness and division.” Foes of affirmative action -- broadly defined as special efforts to counter the persistent effects of discrimination -- sued Harvard University in 2014 on similar grounds.

It’s a prime target. The Justice Department’s letter, which comes as President Donald Trump campaigns for a second term partly by leveraging race, caps a two-year investigation that began after an Asian-American advocacy group filed a bias complaint against the school. The U.S. said Asian-American and White applicants have only one-tenth to one-fourth the chance of being admitted as African-Americans with comparable academic credentials, and accused Yale of “unlawfully dividing Americans into racial and ethnic blocs.” Critics of the government’s move say the U.S. may have targeted Yale after Harvard defeated similar claims.