AACE president Yukong Zhao
On Feb. 3, the Biden administration dropped its discrimination lawsuit against Yale University that alleged the Ivy League school was illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants.
Federal prosecutors said the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s underlying investigation, aimed at ensuring Yale complies with federal anti-discrimination laws, continues.
The government accused Yale in October of violating civil rights laws because it “discriminates based on race and national origin in its undergraduate admissions process, and that race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year.” The investigation stemmed from a 2016 complaint by the New Jersey-based Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) against Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth.
“I am totally shocked by the Biden DOJ’s hasty decision to drop the Yale lawsuit, only eight days after President Biden signed an executive order claiming to combat anti-Asian discrimination,” said Yukong Zhao, AACE president.
Yale said its practices comply with decades of Supreme Court precedent and that it looks at “the whole person” when deciding which applicants to admit.
The Californians for Equal Rights (CFER) called the DOJ’s decision “unsubstantiated,” “a systematic roll back of civil rights protections,” and that it “has committed great injustice to the American people with its acquiescence to race preferences.”
“President Biden says he wants to bring unity, equality, and allow for diverse perspectives in the national conversation,” Rep. Young Kim, a Korean American from California, told Fox News. “However, between dropping a lawsuit seeking to protect Asian Americans against discrimination in higher education and failing to appoint any Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders to his cabinet, the Biden administration appears uncommitted.”
Freshman congresswoman Rep. Michelle Steel, of Korean ancestry and from California, said, “All students should have equal opportunity to succeed on their own merit and shutting the door to applicants based on race is wrong.”
A similar but private suit against Harvard continues, this one brought by Students for Fair Admissions. But it’s likely the government will soon withdraw its supporting brief that scores Harvard for “systematically disfavoring Asian American applicants.”
While we are glad to see the Biden administration reject terms such as “China flu,” the president must also appreciate the real and present harm when America’s most competitive colleges and universities reject their children based on their race no matter their other qualifications.