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Yale University’s medical school illegally discriminates in admissions to favor black and Hispanic students, a Justice Department investigation found.
On Thursday, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division completed a year-long investigation into the Ivy League school’s admissions policies and practices. According to the federal government, Yale admits black and Hispanic applicants at higher rates than white and Asian applicants with similar academic credentials. 
&#8220;Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted with consistently lower academic qualifications than their White and Asian counterparts,&#8221; the DOJ said in a statement. &#8220;These facts support the Department’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1440601/dl">finding</a> that Yale violated the law by intentionally discriminating based on race in its admissions, in clear violation of federal law.&#8221;
The findings suggest Yale may be violating the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf">landmark 2023 Supreme Court ruling</a> striking down race-based affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
&#8220;The students admitted to Yale School of Medicine demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and personal commitment; its program of medical education encourages curiosity and critical thinking, and its graduates go on to become leaders in clinical care, research, and public service,&#8221; a university spokesperson said in a statement to The Daily Wire. &#8220;We will carefully review the Department of Justice’s letter. Yale School of Medicine is confident in the rigorous admissions process we follow. 
The Department of Justice, however, disagrees.
“Yale has continued its race-based admissions program despite the Supreme Court and the public’s clear mandate for reform,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said. “This Department will continue to shed light on these illegal practices, and demand that institutions of higher education comply with federal law.”
Dhillon later pointed to the DOJ&#8217;s statistical analysis.
&#8220;At Yale Medical School, a black applicant is 29 times more likely to be invited to interview than an Asian with equally strong academics,&#8221; Dhillon added. &#8220;Today,<a href="https://x.com/CivilRights">@CivilRights</a> told Yale that its use of race in admissions is ILLEGAL — and that <a href="https://x.com/TheJusticeDept">@TheJusticeDept</a> will step in to enforce Title VI.&#8221;
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At Yale Medical School, a black applicant is 29 times more likely to be invited to interview than an Asian with equally strong academics.
Today, <a href="https://twitter.com/CivilRights?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CivilRights</a> told Yale that its use of race in admissions is ILLEGAL—and that <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJusticeDept?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheJusticeDept</a> will step in to enforce Title VI.…
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) <a href="https://twitter.com/AAGDhillon/status/2054978751524401596?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The findings come amid renewed national debate over affirmative action and admission at elite universities.
Former MSNBC host Joy Reid recently claimed that Vice President JD Vance benefited from affirmative action at Yale, suggesting the university pursued geographic diversity by admitting &#8220;an Appalachian white.&#8221;
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Joy Reid: &#8220;JD Vance got into Yale because they were tired of just letting in white men from New York … They wanted an Appalachian white. That&#8217;s how that man got into Yale, I promise you.&#8221;
How is one such miserable person named Joy? <a href="https://t.co/YepzfccNc3">pic.twitter.com/YepzfccNc3</a>
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) <a href="https://twitter.com/DefiantLs/status/2054758604004319690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
The far-left commentator has publicly credited affirmative action with helping her attend Harvard.
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Ivy League Medical School Accused Of Illegal Race-Based Admissions

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The Trump administration accused UCLA’s medical school of discriminating against white and Asian students by defying a Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in school admissions. 
In a Wednesday <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1425726/dl">motion</a> to join a lawsuit against the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the Justice Department said that the institution was violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The original suit was filed by a woman who says she was denied admission into the school because she was white, alongside the groups Do No Harm and Students for Fair Admissions. 
“Even after the Supreme Court banned race-balancing, the Geffen School kept discriminating by using illegal DEI preferences in admissions,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “As the Supreme Court stated more than 80 years ago, a free people, founded on the doctrine of equality, regard distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry as inherently odious.”
The complaint filed by the Justice Department argued that the school gathers racial data from its applicants and creates workarounds to factor race into the admissions process. 
This includes a question the DOJ said was asked by UCLA as part of the 2024 admissions process on whether an applicant was a member of a “marginalized” group, and then asked the applicant to explain “how this inequity has impacted you or your community and how educational disparity, health disparity and/or marginalization has impacted you and your community.”
“On its face and by design, this question asks Black applicants to reveal their race so that UCLA Med can know and consider it,” the complaint said. 
Data obtained by the Justice Department shows that white and Asian students are held to higher academic standards than black and Hispanic students. For the 2024 incoming class of students at the medical school, the median MCAT scores were widely different for black students (508), Hispanic students (506), white students (513), and Asian students (515). The MCAT is the test aspiring doctors and medical professionals take before going to medical school. 
The Justice Department&#8217;s complaint identified three “disastrous consequences” of race-based admissions. These were the lowering of academic standards, the suspicion cast on minority doctors because of the lower standards, and the denial of equal treatment to people of all races.  
“There is but one legal avenue for a public or publicly funded medical school to pursue diversity in medicine: admit the most qualified candidates regardless of race, and expect that those most qualified candidates will come from every race, because they do,” the complaint said. 
The Justice Department asked a judge to declare the school’s admissions practices unconstitutional and to bar it from considering race in any fashion when considering prospective students. 
A school spokesman told The Daily Wire that the school doesn’t comment on pending litigation. 
“UCLA’s medical school is committed to fair processes in all of our programs and activities, including admissions, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws,” the spokesman said. 
Do No Harm welcomed the Justice Department’s involvement in the case. 
“The United States was right in its move to join this case, which is of great public importance,” said Do No Harm Executive Director Kristina Rasmussen. “We look forward to the Justice Department’s additional efforts here to get to the bottom of what appears to be an effort by UCLA to continue a race-based medical school admissions process in contravention of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions.”
As The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-shapiro-reveals-how-ucla-med-students-are-taught-anti-white-anti-american-hatred">previously reported</a>, UCLA’s school of medicine makes first-year students learn about “colonialism” and “liberation” as part of their coursework. Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro obtained emails in 2024 documenting how med students have to take a <a href="https://medschool.ucla.edu/sites/g/files/oketem456/files/media/images/UCLA-DGSOM-Heals-Curriculum-Schematic.png">class</a> called “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” which teaches them about “Indigenous resistance” and “white colonialism.”

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Justice Department Accuses Med School Of Discriminating Against White And Asian Students

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The following is an edited transcript from &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1894-not-playing-games-trump-launches-investigation-into-minnesota-libs?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.&#8221;
* * *
Michelle Obama went viral yesterday — on Martin Luther King Day of all days — for comments about shopping habits and race.
The viral description making the rounds, however, reads, &#8220;Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands&#8230;&#8221;
The question is whether what she actually said matches that description.
Let&#8217;s find out. Watch:
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Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands and others also should be <a href="https://t.co/5MqY5gaxUv">pic.twitter.com/5MqY5gaxUv</a>
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2013356579802767412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Credit: @EndWokeness/X.com
At a superficial glance, just hearing her words verbatim, you’d probably have to say the viral description isn’t entirely fair. Nowhere does she explicitly say “don’t shop at white-owned brands.” Nowhere does she say “shop at black-owned brands and not white-owned brands.”
And in defense of Michelle Obama — and I don’t generally defend her — that’s not literally what she said.
She said that if she sees a black-owned brand and she likes their stuff, she’ll choose that brand. But she stops herself. She doesn’t say, “and I won’t buy from anyone else.” She doesn’t say, “I only do it because it’s black-owned.”
But here’s the problem: she injects race into the decision. She’s saying, “If I like their stuff, and if it’s black-owned, then I especially want to buy it.” And when she says, “If you have the money to buy Chanel, you have the money to buy everybody,” she very carefully stops short of finishing the sentence. She doesn’t say “black-owned brands.” She says “everybody.”
What she’s doing is trying to privilege the black-owned brand while avoiding the explicit consequence of that choice. She wants to be a racial identitarian when it comes to the positive act of buying — of supporting a business — but she doesn’t want to be a racial identitarian when it comes to the negative act of not shopping somewhere else.
She never says, “Don’t shop at white brands.” Instead, she says you need to shop at black brands, and everybody needs to shop at black brands — but maybe not less at white brands.
It’s a kind of gobbledygook. And that’s why, ultimately, I think the viral description is basically fair, even if it’s not perfectly precise.
It’s like the IQ bell curve meme. At one end, people say she told people not to shop at white stores. In the middle, it’s “she said to shop at black stores but also shop at white stores.” And at the other end, what she’s really saying is: shop less at white stores. Her minor premise is wrong. She says if you have the money to buy Chanel, you have the money to buy everybody.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1894-not-playing-games-trump-launches-investigation-into-minnesota-libs?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
That’s simply not true. Money is a finite resource. Just because you can afford one expensive brand doesn’t mean you have infinite money. And even if you did have infinite money, you have finite closet space. You have a finite number of dresses you’ll wear. A finite number of days in the week. Where are you going to wear all these clothes?
This is the core problem with diversity ideology. If you privilege one thing, you necessarily disadvantage another. 
This is exactly the problem with affirmative action. Everyone says, “Oh, it’s great, we should help out black people.” And yes, for the vast majority of Americans, that sounds good. Who doesn’t want to help?
But affirmative action in practice means something very concrete. There are a finite number of spots at a university. A finite number of jobs. When you give an advantage to black people simply for being black, you are necessarily disadvantageous to someone else — often white people, or Asian people in the case of college admissions. There is discrimination happening. There is an injustice that comes with that, too.
The same logic applies here. When you say, “I’m going to shop at the black brand,” you are necessarily saying that, at the margin — the last dress that fits in your closet — you are not going to shop at the white brand. You are choosing not to go into that shop, not because you dislike the dress, but because of the race of the person who owns it.
That is discrimination on the basis of race. That’s what Michelle Obama is saying — without saying it. She doesn’t want to go all the way, but there is no other conclusion you can reach from her premises.
This ties directly into why people don’t really talk about Martin Luther King Jr. the same way anymore. Part of it is that the modern Left rejects him because he was too conciliatory and too egalitarian. But the other reason is that the practical politics don’t match the rhetoric.
Dr. King famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 
And yet his successors say that in order to achieve that dream, we need affirmative action, DEI, and diversity ideology. Which, in practice, means judging people — especially white people — by the color of their skin.
Taken to its extreme, it means not shopping at white-owned businesses. And even if you agree with MLK’s premise, you are completely undermining it with these practical consequences.
So no, I don’t begrudge Michelle Obama for shopping at black-owned businesses. That’s fine. But if you’re going to say it, say it with your whole heart. Finish the sentence.
Tell people explicitly: shop at black businesses. Don’t shop at white businesses. Define what counts as ownership — 50% plus one ownership? Board seats? Stakeholders? I don’t know. But say it clearly.
And if you’re not willing to say that, then just buy the dress you like.

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Michelle Obama And The Logic Of ‘Mindful’ Shopping

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Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday that the Justice Department has sued the state of Minnesota over affirmative action-based hiring practices.
&#8220;Today, @TheJusticeDept sued Minnesota for using affirmative action to hire for its state agencies. This is discriminatory DEI codified into bad state policy, and the Trump Administration will not stand for it,&#8221; Bondi posted on X, sharing a link to the DOJ&#8217;s official <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-department-justice-files-lawsuit-against-minnesotas-affirmative-action-regime">press release</a> on the matter.
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Today, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJusticeDept?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheJusticeDept</a> sued Minnesota for using affirmative action to hire for its state agencies.
This is discriminatory DEI codified into bad state policy, and the Trump Administration will not stand for it. <a href="https://t.co/NcNHMftLwa">https://t.co/NcNHMftLwa</a>
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi/status/2011504118699807030?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit today against the State of Minnesota challenging Minnesota’s requirement that all state agencies implement sex- and race-based affirmative action plans and consider &#8216;affirmative action goals on all staffing and personnel decisions,'&#8221; the release stated. &#8220;The State’s affirmative action program directs agencies to engage in employment practices that &#8216;balance&#8217; the sex and race composition of its workforce with the civilian labor force.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1423361/dl">suit</a> was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and asserts that Minnesota&#8217;s mandatory affirmative action-based hiring practices violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).
&#8220;Because staffing is a zero-sum game, when Minnesota gives preferences to employees or prospective employees on the basis of their race, color, national origin, and sex, it inevitably and necessarily discriminates against other employees or prospective employees because of their race, color, national origin, and sex,&#8221; the filing stated, in part.
Bondi addressed the situation in Minnesota, saying that the lawsuit was just one way in which the DOJ was working from different angles to ensure that the state was not undermining federal policies — whether those policies pertained to enforcing immigration law, investigating fraud, or ensuring that federal efforts to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives were not being undermined.
&#8220;From suing over sanctuary city policies to a wide-ranging fraud investigation, today&#8217;s lawsuit is the Department of Justice&#8217;s latest effort to bring Minnesota into compliance with federal law,&#8221; Bondi explained. &#8220;Making hiring decisions based on immutable characteristics like race and sex is simple discrimination, and the Trump Administration has no tolerance for such DEI policies.&#8221;
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon — at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — added, &#8220;For far too long, courts have allowed employers to discriminate based on race and sex when it is packaged as ‘affirmative action.’ The Supreme Court put an end to using race as a factor in college admissions through its Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision. This case is the next logical step. Title VII protects all people from race and sex discrimination in employment. There is no exception that allows discrimination against employees who aren’t considered ‘underrepresented.'&#8221;

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DOJ Sues Minnesota Over Affirmative Action Hiring Practices: ‘DEI Codified Into Bad State Policy’

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Two more military academies agreed to permanently end race-based admissions, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
In a new settlement, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Air Force Academy will abandon DEI in favor of merit, Attorney General Pam Bondi <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-settles-lawsuits-challenging-race-based-admissions-west-point-and-air">said</a>. The settlement will lead to the dismissal of two lawsuits against the academies brought by the group Students for Fair Admissions.
“This Department is committed to eliminating DEI practices throughout the federal government,” Bondi said. “We are proud to partner with the Department of Defense to permanently end race-based admissions at West Point and the Air Force Academy — admission to these prestigious military institutions should be based exclusively on merit.”
Students for Fair Admission, the group whose suit led to the end of affirmative action at universities across the country, argued that race-based admissions policies at the military academies violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
The terms of agreement in the settlement stipulate that merit will be the only factor leading to admission at either West Point or the Air Force Academy.
“America is the land of equal opportunity, in spirit and in law,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Today’s agreement ensures that our future military leaders will carry on the greatness that is born of opportunity, effort, and a level playing field.”
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon also praised the settlement.
“Congrats to our [DOJ Civil] Division for their hard work in restoring merit-based admissions to some of our top military academies!” she posted on X.
In June, a similar settlement <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/naval-academy-promises-to-permanently-end-race-based-admissions">was announced</a> between Students for Fair Admissions and the U.S. Naval Academy.
That came after President Donald Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-americas-fighting-force/">executive order</a> on January 27 that said that no one within the military should be given any advantage based on gender or race.
“Unfortunately, in recent years civilian and uniformed leadership alike have implemented Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and their attendant race and sex preferences within the Armed Forces,” Trump wrote in an executive order. “These actions undermine leadership, merit, and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness.  They also violate Americans’ consciences by engaging in invidious race and sex discrimination.”

Washington DC Celebrates Army’s 250th Anniversary With Parade And Festivities

Two More Military Academies Agree To ‘Permanently’ Drop Race-Based Admissions

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Every year, millions of high school students across the country dream of attending America’s most selective colleges. In California, that goal may be harder to reach as pro-affirmative action lawmakers push for new ways to give certain groups a leg up in admissions.
As a high school junior in San Jose, I will be applying to college next year. Students like me are taking AP classes, building their profiles, and doing everything we’ve been told to help us get into the schools of our choice.
The system is far from perfect but the basic premise is that colleges will then, in good faith, try to weigh each applicant based on merit and context. No group receives an unearned advantage at the expense of others.
<a href="https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB7/id/3029617">California Assembly Bill 7</a> (AB7) blows a hole in that idea.
The bill, which recently passed in the Assembly by a 54–17 vote, would allow California public universities to consider whether an applicant is “a descendant of a chattel enslaved person of American chattel slavery.” It’s part of <a href="https://blackcaucus.legislature.ca.gov/news/california-legislative-black-caucus-introduces-2024-reparations-legislative-package">a broader reparations push</a> and now headed to the state Senate.
The bill’s author, Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, says it’s not about race but historic harm. “For decades, universities gave preferential admission treatment to donors, and their family members, while others tied to legacies of harm were ignored and at times outright excluded,” Bryan <a href="https://apnews.com/article/california-universities-slavery-descendants-admissions-4b0e84c27b40725a9f7929b230a591ca">told the Associated Press</a>. 
He’s right about history. The legacy of slavery has shaped socioeconomic outcomes for Black Americans. But that doesn’t mean all descendants of slavery are disadvantaged — or that ancestry should now serve as some kind of admissions shortcut.
That distinction seems to be missing from the conversation. What we’re left with is a bill that awards preference based on ancestry.
This bill proposes an eligibility line drawn by lineage. To be clear, the text does not use the words “Black” or “African American” but rather delineates a specific historical category, “descendants of U.S. chattel slavery,” without using racial language. It’s designed to sidestep Proposition 209, which banned racial preferences in 1996, and the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions that struck down affirmative action nationwide.
Legal scholars describe such policies as “race proxies”: mechanisms that dodge explicit racial language but preserve race as the decisive factor in practice. Courts have repeatedly scrutinized such end-runs: in Parents Involved v. Seattle, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2006/05-908">the Supreme Court warned</a> against policies that look constructive but act as racial stand-ins.
The legal system has long treated ancestral classifications with the same suspicion as racial ones. In Hirabayashi v. United States, the 1943 case on Japanese-American internment, <a href="https://edge.sagepub.com/epsteinpowers11e/student-resources/chapter-5-interbranch-interactions/hirabayashi-v-united-states">the Court held</a> that “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Moreover, the express text of Proposition 209 includes “ethnicity” in its enumeration of protected categories as well as race.
The bill defines a “descendant of slavery” as someone whose ancestors were enslaved specifically in the United States, meaning it would exclude many Black students whose families came from Africa or the Caribbean after abolition. Meanwhile, someone who identifies as white but has traced a distant enslaved ancestry through DNA testing could, in theory, qualify. And we know these terms circle a ridiculously arbitrary line. African American activist Angela Davis <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/angela-davis-finding-your-roots-mayflower-ancestors-rcna71700">went on PBS’s</a> ancestry show Finding Your Roots only to find out she’s a descendent from Mayflower colonists. She was mortified.
But even if Bryan turns out to be right on the legal question, does the technical distinction between race and ancestry suddenly make it fair to those it excludes?
No. Ancestry-based preferences would still have effectively all the same downsides as other affirmative action policies: lack of individual assessment, blunt group categorization, and fairness concerns for everyone else. As Chief Justice John Roberts <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf">wrote in the SFFA majority opinion</a>: “College admissions are zero-sum. A benefit provided to some applicants but not to others necessarily advantages the former group at the expense of the latter.”
Even if preference is framed as reparative, someone else is paying the price.
There are better options to help marginalized students. California lawmakers could index Cal Grants to local cost of living. They could strengthen the UC/CSU admission guarantees for top students at public high schools. They could improve outreach around community college transfer guarantees or pass bills like <a href="https://www.padilla.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/BASIC-Act-One-Pager.pdf">the BASIC Act</a>, which would give colleges resources to help students cover food, housing, and health care.
This bill, by contrast, like other affirmative action-adjacent legislation before it, assumes inherited identity stands in for “lived struggle.” It doesn’t.
We don’t need another lecture on systemic inequality. We see the results of it in classmates of all backgrounds who stop aiming high because they don’t think college is for them, or can’t imagine paying for it.
The California Senate should reject this bill and pursue fairer solutions, rather than advancing a measure the Supreme Court is likely to strike down.
* * *
William Liang is a student journalist living in San Jose, California.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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I’m Preparing For College. California’s New Slavery Bill Could Change Everything.

I’m Preparing for College. California’s New Slavery Bill Could Change Everything.

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The Justice Department confirmed Monday that the United States Naval Academy would no longer consider race in admissions, according to a court document. 
In a joint <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1403766/dl?inline=&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">filing</a> with Students for Fair Admission, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit against the academy over a policy that allowed it to consider race during the admissions process. Students for Fair Admission, which sued the academy in October 2023, agreed that the suit was no longer needed due to policy changes implemented by the Trump administration. 
“This Department is committed to ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity throughout the federal government,” <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-addresses-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-challenging-race-based-admissions">said</a> Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “We are proud to partner with the Department of Defense to permanently end race-based admissions at the United States Naval Academy and ensure that admission to this prestigious institution is based exclusively on merit.”
The filing states that the lawsuit is now moot due to the policy change and asks that the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismiss a lower court&#8217;s ruling that kept race-based admissions in place. The policy allowed the academy to “consider race or ethnicity as one of many nondeterminative factors” for admission. 
This policy ended after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 27 that said that no one within the military should be given any advantage based on gender or race. 
In compliance with that order, Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Admiral Yvette Davids issued a memo in February saying that “at no point during the admissions process (including qualification and acceptance) should race, ethnicity, or sex be a factor for admission.”
The joint filing said that considering race and ethnicity for admissions does not contribute to military cohesiveness, lethality, recruitment, or national security. 
“It is the military judgment of the Department of Defense that recruiting and promoting individuals based on merit alone, and not based on their immutable characteristics, improves unit cohesion and performance,” the joint filing said. “The Department of Defense has now determined that neither the recruitment and retention of talented officers nor the legitimacy of the U.S. military are positively affected by the service academies’ consideration of race in admissions.”
Students for Fair Admission was the organization behind the landmark case where the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in higher education was unconstitutional and racially discriminatory.

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Tennessee challenged the Department of Education on Wednesday over a program that offers specific funding only to schools composed of at least 25% Hispanic students, arguing that the initiative is unconstitutional.
Joined by the organization Students for Fair Admissions, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti <a href="https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/pr/2025/2025-6-hsi.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> the Education Department over its Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) program, which gives financial aid to institutions that have at least 25% Hispanic enrollment. In the suit, Skrmetti argues that the racial requirements of the program are arbitrary and violate federal law.
“The Department of Education cannot discriminate based on race or ethnicity — even when Congress orders it to. Yet under the Higher Education Act, the Department awards grants to colleges and universities only if they enroll a certain number of Hispanic students,” the suit says.
The lawsuit took aim at several aspects of the program, including the Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions grant <a href="https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-special-populations/grants-hispanic-students/developing-hispanic-serving-institutions-program--title-v#:~:text=The%20Developing%20Hispanic%2DServing%20Institutions,program%20quality%2C%20and%20institutional%20stability." target="_blank" rel="noopener">opportunity</a> and the Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans <a href="https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-special-populations/grants-hispanic-students/promoting-postbaccalaureate-opportunities-for-hispanic-americans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">initiative</a>. Both of these programs, Skrmetti argues, violate federal law because of their racial component.
The suit notes that no college in Tennessee qualifies as “Hispanic-Serving” because none have at least 25% Hispanic enrollment, even though some institutions, like the University of Memphis, have a high percentage of minority enrollment.
“The State of Tennessee operates many colleges and universities. Every one of them serves Hispanic students. Every one of them serves low-income students. But not one of them qualifies to receive grants under the HSI program. Why? Because they don’t have the right mix of ethnicities on campus,” the lawsuit says, noting that the 25% number was an &#8220;arbitrary ethnic threshold.&#8221;
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Skrmetti said that the grant program was un-American and unconstitutional, and violated the recent Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-issues-landmark-ruling-on-affirmative-action-at-universities">decision</a> to overturn affirmative action in admissions in Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
“Treating people differently because of their skin color and ancestry drags our country backwards. The HSI program perversely deprives even needy Hispanic students of the benefits of this funding if they attend institutions that don’t meet the government’s arbitrary quota,” he said.
The Trump administration has pushed to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates from the federal government and cut grants for organizations that promote racial ideologies. In January, President Donald Trump issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/">executive order</a> directing his administration to ensure that any educational facility receiving federal dollars complied with the Students for Fair Admissions decision.

US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-EDUCATION-MCMAHON

Red State Sues Education Department Over ‘Arbitrary’ Racial Grant Program

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education

tennessee

The Trump administration is pushing for all federal agencies to cancel or transition away from contracts with Harvard University by June 6.
Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum wrote in a Tuesday letter to all federal agencies to take steps to end any contract they might have with Harvard, accusing the university of engaging in racial discrimination in admissions and other discriminatory behavior. The contracts total approximately $100 million.
&#8220;We recommend that your agency terminate for convenience each contract that it determines has failed to meet its standards, and transition to a new vendor those contracts that could be better serviced by an alternative counterparty. Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard,&#8221; Gruenbaum wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Wire. &#8220;We look forward to assisting you with terminating or transitioning these contracts.&#8221;
The letter cites numerous examples of how the Trump administration believes Harvard violated federal law.
&#8220;As relevant here, GSA (U.S. General Services Administration) understands that Harvard continues to engage in race discrimination, including in its admissions process and in other areas of student life. The statistical evidence of Harvard’s racial discrimination in their admissions — as revealed in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard — is shocking, to say the least,&#8221; Gruenbaum wrote. 
The letter noted that admissions rates for the top academic performance varied widely by race. The administration said the admission rates for the highest academic decile were 56% for African Americans, 31% for Hispanics, 15% for whites, and 13% for Asians.
&#8220;Harvard has shown no indication of reforming their admissions process — to the contrary, Harvard now has to offer a remedial math course, which has been described as &#8216;middle school math,&#8217; for incoming freshmen. These are the direct results of employing discriminatory factors, instead of merit, in admission decisions,&#8221; Gruenbaum wrote. 
Gruenbaum added that Harvard was suspected of having racial preferences not only in admissions, but also in hiring.
&#8220;Harvard is suspected of engaging in a pattern or practice of disparate treatment in hiring, promotion, compensation, and other personnel related actions,&#8221; he wrote. 
He also cited &#8220;discriminatory practices&#8221; at the Harvard Law Review, which reportedly include expedited review for minority authors. The Trump administration previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-launches-probe-into-harvard-law-review-over-treatment-of-white-contributors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opened up</a> a probe into the journal last month.
The Trump administration has also taken issue with Harvard&#8217;s handling of anti-Israel protests, including the awarding of a $65,000 fellowship to a protester accused of assaulting a Jewish student.
&#8220;Harvard’s ongoing inaction in the face of repeated and severe harassment and targeting of its students has at times grounded day-to-day campus operations to a halt, deprived Jewish students of learning and research opportunities to which they are entitled, and profoundly alarmed the general public,&#8221; Gruenbaum wrote. 
More than $2 billion in federal funds for Harvard have been frozen as the university has pushed back on the Trump administration&#8217;s actions to crack down on DEI and campus activism.

Harvard University Campus

Trump Gives Deadline For Federal Agencies To Cancel Harvard Contracts

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Executive

harvard university

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action, an Illinois medical school admits black and Hispanic students with lower average MCAT scores and GPAs than the average scores of white and Asian students it rejects, according to data shared with The Daily Wire.
An analysis of the academic scores of students admitted into Southern Illinois School of Medicine from 2019-2024 reveals that blacks and Hispanics are admitted to the school with much lower scores than whites and Asians, figures obtained by Do No Harm show. These apparently different academic standards continue despite the Supreme Court&#8217;s June 2023 decision to strike down affirmative action, leading to concern that the university is watering down the importance of academics in admissions.
This revelation comes as school leadership <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/unearthed-footage-exposes-medical-school-administrators-pledging-resist-trump-executive-orders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promises</a> to &#8220;resist&#8221; and &#8220;fight back&#8221; against executive actions from the Trump administration cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. A spokeswoman for the school told The Daily Wire that it was &#8220;committed to following the law and complying with the decisions of the Supreme Court.&#8221;
Comparing average GPAs and MCAT scores, Do No Harm found that whites and Asians generally need to score significantly higher than blacks and Hispanics to be admitted into the school. The MCAT is the standardized test that all prospective doctors must take to be admitted into medical school.
“In 2024, the average MCAT score of accepted Asians and whites (combined) was more than 4 points higher than that of accepted blacks and Hispanics (combined) — equivalent to a gap of about 14 percentile points. On GPA, accepted Asians and whites on average had 0.36 higher scores than accepted Blacks and Hispanics,” Do No Harm wrote in a summary of its analysis of the data. 
According to data from 2024, the average GPA score of students accepted into the Southern Illinois  School of Medicine, broken down by race, was: Hispanic (3.45), black (3.50), white (3.85), and Asian (3.89). For the MCAT (best score being 528), the average scores were as follows: Hispanic (503.5 &#8211; 58th percentile), black (505.7 &#8211; 65th percentile), white (509 &#8211; 75th percentile), and Asian (512.8 &#8211; 85th percentile).
&#8220;When comparing to the average scores of all accepted applicants, whites/Asians scored slightly above average while blacks/Hispanics scored significantly below average,&#8221; Do No Harm noted in its report.
The 2024 data also reveal that whites and Asians who were rejected had average higher MCAT scores and GPAs than blacks and Hispanics who were accepted. The average MCAT score for whites/Asians rejected was 505.7, compared to the 505.2 of blacks/Hispanics accepted. For GPA, the average for white/Asians rejected was 3.66 compared to the 3.50 of blacks/Hispanics accepted.
The data also show that 21 Asians with perfect GPAs were rejected in 2024.
&#8220;Of the 24 black or Hispanic applicants admitted in 2024, 17 had MCAT scores lower than the average white or Asian rejected applicant; 13 had GPAs lower than the average white or Asian rejected applicant,&#8221; Do No Harm noted. &#8220;In 2024, no Asian admitted student had an MCAT score below 503. Meanwhile, half of black admitted students (9 of 18) had an MCAT score below 503.&#8221;
These trends hold for every year from 2020 to 2024, with average rejection scores for whites/Asians being higher than average accepted scores for blacks/Hispanics, as Do No Harm noted that 2024 was &#8220;not an outlier.&#8221;
&#8220;Blacks and Hispanics were admitted with lower MCAT and GPA scores than whites and Asians in each of the past five years at the school,&#8221; Do No Harm reported. &#8220;A five-year average of SIUSOM’s accepted applicants shows that there was a difference of 0.34 GPA points between the two racial groups.&#8221;
The same could be found when comparing MCAT scores.
<div id="attachment_924279" style="width: 1175px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-924279" class="size-full wp-image-924279" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-22-at-2.41.15%E2%80%AFPM.png" alt="" width="1165" height="621" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-22-at-2.41.15%E2%80%AFPM.png 1165w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-22-at-2.41.15%E2%80%AFPM-300x160.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-22-at-2.41.15%E2%80%AFPM-1024x546.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-22-at-2.41.15%E2%80%AFPM-768x409.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1165px) 100vw, 1165px" />Credit: Do No Harm.</div>
Paulette Dove, the senior counsel for Health Affairs for the Southern Illinois University system, said earlier this year that the affirmative action decision had a big impact on the school. 
“And then I just wanted to share one of the cases that had the biggest impact on SIU since I&#8217;ve been here, from a legal perspective, is the Students for Fair Admissions case that came out in 2023 and that was about looking at race and diversity and other issues in admissions and how that went about,&#8221; she said in a video shared with The Daily Wire, turning a faculty discussion on Trump&#8217;s executive actions.
&#8220;And I want you to know that those lawsuits were started in 2014 and we saw an outcome from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023,&#8221; she added. &#8220;So, there is time to work through all of these issues that are coming up now, even though they feel urgent, and we will do our best to stay on top of those urgent things, but my best suggestion to you is to really stay the course for the time being.”
Ian Kingsbury, the director of research for Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire that he is skeptical that the university has complied with the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, saying that the school would be &#8220;pretty hard pressed to convince&#8221; someone that the admission data doesn&#8217;t reveal racial discrimination. 
On its website, the school lists a number of factors it considers in admission. These <a href="https://www.siumed.edu/md-admissions#selection-factors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">include</a> extracurricular activities, employment and volunteer experience, and area of residence, &#8220;with preference given to central and southern Illinois residents and those from rural, inner-city, or disadvantaged backgrounds.&#8221;
Kingsbury said that the school would have had to significantly deemphasize academics to get to its current situation.
&#8220;I understand that academic qualifications alone aren’t the only thing that should determine your admission to medical school. But in any sane and reasonable world, they should be extremely important,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Essentially, they would have to establish that the non-academic criteria that they are using, that it just so happens that their black and Hispanic applicants are that much better than their white and Asian applicants along those criteria.” 
Southern Illinois School of Medicine has received millions of federal dollars, <a href="https://budzinski.house.gov/posts/budzinski-announces-3-2-million-for-siu-school-of-medicine?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including</a> a $3.2 million grant in 2023, to improve its facilities. The school also currently has <a href="https://taggs.hhs.gov/searchaward" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple grants</a> from the National Institutes of Health, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to study drug addictions.
In January, President Donald Trump issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> that directed his administration to ensure that any educational facility receiving federal dollars was complying with the Students for Fair Admission decision. Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to medical schools warning them of &#8220;unlawful&#8221; admission practices that look at race in admissions.
&#8220;It appears that many medical schools may have yet to come into compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA,&#8221; the department wrote. &#8220;Medical schools found to be out of compliance with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, be subject to investigation and measures to secure compliance which may, if unsuccessful, affect continued eligibility for federal funding.&#8221;
Kingsbury said that there was a cultural problem across much of taxpayer-funded academia where they thought they were above oversight.
“This is a cultural problem in higher ed broadly, where they don’t feel that they’re responsive or accountable to any democratic authority,” he said. “It really is a problem across the academy. They think they should be running themselves without any concern for what the president of the United States says or what the Supreme Court of the United States says.”

Cropped of black doctor using digital tablet at workplace

Med School Caught Rejecting White And Asian Applicants With Better Scores Than Minorities It Accepts

illinois

Trump on Tuesday rescinded a 1965 executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson that required companies doing contract work for the federal government to institute “affirmative action” programs.
Trump, citing his duty as president to ensure civil rights laws are enforced, said in his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> that such policies have resulted in “disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.”
This was part of Trump’s broader EO that eliminated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the federal government. The EO also specifically refers to Executive Order 11246 (Equal Employment Opportunity). Federal contractors may continue to comply with the original EO for the next 90 days.
The media is unsurprisingly calling this a rollback of civil rights or “<a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/trump-guts-contractor-watchdogs-anti-discrimination-authority" target="_blank" rel="noopener">anti-discrimination power</a>,” but like DEI, affirmative action was always used to promote people based on race and not merit.
The Supreme Court in 2023 issued a landmark ruling stating that affirmative action policies – specifically those at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina – violated the law and caused discrimination rather than prevented it.
Harvard was found to have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, while UNC was found to have violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-issues-landmark-ruling-on-affirmative-action-at-universities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
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In 2013, National Review explained why the Johnson EO is legally questionable:
<blockquote>“It is wrong as a matter of law and policy for DOL’s Office of Federal Contracting Compliance Programs to require covered federal contractors to set goals and timetables whenever they have a certain degree of ‘underrepresentation’ among minorities and women. The regulations’ present approach is at odds with the current case law. It is quite clear that this use of classifications based on race, ethnicity, and sex will trigger judicial strict scrutiny; that mere statistical disparities are not sufficient to justify the use of racial classifications; and that, even if they were, there is no justification for goals and timetables to be triggered when women and minorities are ‘underrepresented’ but not when men and non-minorities are.”</blockquote>
The outlet went on to note that the stated reason for affirmative action programs – past discrimination – no longer applies since discrimination in the federal government has been outlawed since at least 1961. It has been prohibited everywhere since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Following Trump’s executive order, his administration released a memo placing all DEI officials on paid leave by the end of the business day on Wednesday, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-to-put-all-federal-dei-officials-on-leave-by-end-of-day-tomorrow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. It is unclear whether these employees will be reassigned or if a firing process will begin.

Donald Trump

Trump Rescinds Executive Order Forcing ‘Affirmative Action’ On Govt Contractors

Trump Rescinds Executive Order Forcing ‘Affirmative Action’ On Government Contractors

Executive Orders

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