The U.S. Department of Justice says it has found that Duke University Law School discriminated against white and Asian applicants in favor of Black and Hispanic candidates in its admissions process.

The Justice Department says it found a “a deliberate effort to preserve racial outcomes” at Duke Law for the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 — and cited several statistical figures it says prove that effort was successful. That means Duke violated the Civil Rights Act and a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill, the department said.

Some of the evidence the Justice Department cites to prove Duke Law continued to consider race in admissions after that became illegal:

— In 2024, median Law School Admission Test, or LSAT, scores for admitted Black and Hispanic applicants were lower than admitted white and Asian students.

— According to a Justice Department review, a Black applicant was 3.5 times more likely to be admitted than an Asian applicant with similar academic credentials in 2025.

In August 2025, two years after the Supreme Court decision striking down the use of affirmative action in college admissions, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum going further: requiring universities to report detailed admissions data by race so that the administration could check whether “diversity statements” and other “hidden racial proxies” were being used to circumvent the ruling.

The Justice Department says Duke Law used racial proxies to try to increase diversity in incoming classes, which it says included flagging whether answers to essay questions to mentioned diversity and whether applicants were Pell grant recipients.

“Duke Law’s internal documents, including policies, and communications confirm the Department’s findings that Duke Law intended to discriminate against all racial groups except black and Hispanic applicants, (in order) to accept more black and Hispanic applicants,” the Justice Department’s letter to Duke, dated Aug. 6, 2026, reads.

The Justice Department investigation into Duke Law began in early 2025.

“Today, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division issued a letter of findings related to Duke Law’s admissions practices,” the university said in a statement. “We are reviewing the letter and its conclusions carefully. Duke is committed to complying with the law and will continue to do so in a manner that is consistent with our academic mission.”

The DOJ is investigating similar alleged issues at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine.

What does the DOJ say Duke is doing to discriminate?

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars programs and organizations that receive federal money from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.

The letter alleges intentional discrimination by Duke. Intentional discrimination can be proven by direct evidence, such as an admission or racial slur in a document, or by statistics that reveal a pattern of disparate impact.

Historically, the Justice Department has accepted statistics showing a disparate impact as proof of intentional discrimination in cases involving voting rights, housing and alleged discrimination under Title VI. But under Trump, the standards have been narrowed to eliminate disparate impact as evidence of discrimination, making it harder to prove civil rights claims, said Scott Holmes, a law professor at North Carolina Central University.

In its letter to Duke, however, the Justice Department contradicts that pattern by relying on statistics to make its case.

The Justice Department’s letter presents evidence and reasoning that interpret Duke’s actions much more broadly than the law allows, Holmes said. The standard set by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill says schools can’t use race in admissions by, for example, treating applicants differently based on their race, he said. But the court has said schools can pursue diversity in other ways, such as asking applicants to discuss their race and how it affected their development in an essay, he said.

The letter also accuses Duke Law of intentionally seeking to create a diverse student body.

The letter is part of a broader pattern, Holmes said, of the Trump administration sending threatening letters that misinterpret the Supreme Court’s decision.

The administration has threatened organizations through executive orders, Justice Department letters and inquiries like the one involving Duke, Holmes said. But federal courts, he said, have generally found that organizations do not violate the law simply by expressing a desire for a diverse community.

What are the next steps in the process?

Now that a conclusion has been reached, the Justice Department says it “will engage in settlement negotiations to ensure the school’s admissions practices are brought into compliance.” It also said it believes this discrimination is ongoing.

If negotiations fail, the Justice Department says it will sue Duke.

Holmes said Duke will likely first respond with supplemental documentation outlining why the letter is incomplete and how the school has complied with Supreme Court precedent. That could be followed by meetings with federal officials, Holmes said.

“I mean, smart lawyers at Duke, and there are plenty of them, may try to find a way to let the Department of Justice look like it has a win,” he said, possibly by making a concession that gives federal officials a political victory.

While the letter doesn’t make any clear demands, the dispute could be litigated if it isn’t resolved through negotiations. The Justice Department could also begin proceedings to terminate Duke’s federal funding.

“But that would be a long time from now,” he said.

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