DOJ Warns: Almost All U.S. Universities Are Breaking Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon issued a blanket condemnation of universities across the country, averring that virtually none of them have acted in accordance with federal law regarding non-discrimination in admissions.

Dhillon and her law firm joined the Alliance Defending Freedom to represent The Daily Wire when it became the first major company to file a lawsuit against the emergency vaccine mandate implemented by the Biden administration in 2021. Other groups later joined the case, which was consolidated into National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of The Daily Wire and its fellow plaintiffs.

Dhillon said with regard to Harvard University, “even if they never took a penny of federal funding again in the future, they’ve taken billions annually over the past many years. And so, the United States has jurisdiction over discrimination that has occurred during the time. And, to be very clear, every time a vendor like a university like Harvard takes federal money, they sign certifications saying that they’re compliant with federal law. Except they aren’t.”

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“Almost no university in the United States has been compliant with federal law when it comes to anti-discrimination in admissions, and particularly the most elite ones,” she said, widening the argument. “They have quotas. They have discrimination. This sort of wave of antisemitism on American campuses, which I believe stems from foreign funding, but is absolutely allowed and exacerbated by callousness or even reckless disregard by these universities, is making life miserable for students, and the American government’s not going to put up with it. So, we have a choice as to where the federal money goes. And a minimum criterion is you can’t be in violation of federal law.”

According to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, universities and colleges that receive federal financial aid are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. A student cannot be prevented from any educational opportunities or subjected to discriminatory treatment based on their color or ethnicity. Those anti-discrimination laws are enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), a division of the U.S. Department of Education.

In 2019, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) released the results of a seven-year study into illicit funding of U.S. universities by foreign governments. The study found “substantial Middle Eastern funding (primarily from Qatar) to US universities that had not been reported to the Department of Education. … ISGAP has uncovered and established that the foreign donations from Qatar, especially, have had a substantial impact on fomenting growing levels of antisemitic discourse and campus politics at US universities, as well as growing support for anti-democratic values within these institutions of higher education.”

ISGAP followed that report with another titled, “The Ongoing Failure to Report: Yale, Qatar, And Undisclosed Foreign Funding.”