Princeton, Yale, and Duke threatened with lawsuits over alleged affirmative action violations
Princeton, Yale, and Duke universities are facing potential lawsuits from Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) for allegedly not adhering to the Supreme Court's ruling banning race-based affirmative action.
SFFA claims these schools' current demographic data suggest non-compliance with the 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Princeton University, Yale University, and Duke University have each been threatened with lawsuits for allegedly not complying with recent Supreme Court precedent banning race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
“SFFA is deeply concerned that you are not complying with Harvard,” the non-profit group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) wrote to the three colleges on Sept. 17, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
In 2023, the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard prohibited race-based affirmative action.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” the Supreme Court decided in that case. “Accordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality’—it is ‘universal in [its] application.’”
Now, Princeton, Yale, and Duke have been accused of failing to comply with this seminal case.
“You told the Supreme Court that, without explicit racial preferences, it would be impossible to ‘obtain the diverse student body’ that you obtained in the past,” the SFFA letter continued. “And based on SFFA’s extensive experience, your racial numbers are not possible under true race neutrality.”
“SFFA is prepared to enforce Harvard against you through litigation,” the letter concluded. “You are now on notice. Preserve all potentially relevant documents and communications.”
Several elite universities whose incoming classes share very similar demographic statistics to previous classes, even despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in S.F.F.A. v. Harvard which prohibited affirmative action.
University of San Francisco law professor Gail Heriot, stated that elite universities may not be complying with Supreme Court precedent.
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“It looks to me like Yale is deliberately sending a message that it doesn’t intend to comply with the law,” Heriot said. “The fact that the Asian-American numbers have gone down so drastically at Yale strikes me as a red flag.”
Dan Morenoff, executive director of the American Civil Rights Project, also hypothesized that non-compliance may be an issue.
“Either what they said to the Court was factually wrong or what they said was right and, therefore, they are not engaging in race-neutral admissions policies now,” Morenoff explained to the Free Beacon. “I don’t think there is room for a third possibility.”
Campus Reform has contacted Students for Fair Admissions, Yale University, Princeton University, and Duke University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
