“Review all policies and practices at Duke Health for the illegal use of race preferences, take immediate action to reform all of those that unlawfully take account of race or ethnicity to bestow benefits or advantages.”
The Department of Education on Monday announced that it will be launching an investigation into Duke University and Duke Law Journal over allegations that there is a racial bias in selecting editors at the university's law journal.
In a press release from the DOE, the agency said that Secretary of Education Linda McMahon as well as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter to Duke "outlining shared concerns about the use of race preferences in Duke’s hiring, admissions, and scholarship decisions."
The letter from McMahon asked that the university “review all policies and practices at Duke Health for the illegal use of race preferences, take immediate action to reform all of those that unlawfully take account of race or ethnicity to bestow benefits or advantages, and provide clear and verifiable assurances to the government that Duke’s new policies will be implemented faithfully going forward—including by making all necessary organizational, leadership, and personnel changes to ensure the necessary reforms will be durable.”
The allegations against the school stem from a packet circulated by the law journal concerning editor applications. Reports detailed that the packet "stated that applicants could receive up to 10 points for describing how their 'membership in an underrepresented group' promoted 'diverse voices' and 3-5 additional points if they '[held] a leadership position in an affinity group,'" the press release stated.
The letter also asks that Duke create a “Merit and Civil Rights Committee” in order to push the university to move towards a resolution over Duke's civil rights violations.
“I am proud to partner with Secretary Kennedy to ensure that Duke commits to excellence, integrity, and lawfulness in their training of our nation’s future leaders. If Duke illegally gives preferential treatment to law journal or medical school applicants based on those students’ immutable characteristics, that is an affront not only to civil rights law, but to the meritocratic character of academic excellence," McMahon said. “Blatantly discriminatory practices that are illegal under the Constitution, antidiscrimination law, and Supreme Court precedent have become all too common in our educational institutions. The Trump Administration will not allow them to continue.”
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