The Trump administration opens an investigation on Yale University

The education and justice departments are investigating whether Yale University discriminates against American applicants of Asian origin, thus broadening the scope of admission practices. at a second elite university.

Yale denied the allegations, said he would cooperate with the investigation and defended his work to create a diverse class of students.

The joint investigation was leaked Wednesday in a letter from the Civil Rights Bureau of the Education Department to the Asian American Coalition for Education, which challenges universities' admission practices.

The coalition argues that universities are striving to limit the number of Asian Americans who are admitted each year.

The civil rights office also said it refused to file similar complaints against Dartmouth College and Brown University, citing insufficient evidence.

The action follows a Harvard University Justice Department investigation and is further evidence that the Trump administration is looking skeptical of affirmative action policies and policies. Admission of elite universities. The Justice Department opened its investigation into Yale in April, the letter revealed.

Positive action is generally seen as stimulating racial minorities, so such challenges are unusual. In this case, the question is whether universities see the need to limit the number of Asian Americans admitted to ensure diversity.

The letter sent on Wednesday indicates that it relied in part on information relating to the experience of an Asian American candidate in the Yale bid field, but gave no further details.

He stated that the Civil Rights Bureau would conduct an investigation into "whether the university had discriminated against the applicant and other American-American candidates by treating candidates differently based on race during the process. admission ".

The agency said that there were not enough details to open investigations on Brown and Dartmouth. A key factor appeared to be that, unlike Yale, no applicant claimed to be discriminated against in those schools.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the academic community, Yale President Peter Salovey revealed the investigation and said "unequivocally" that Yale did not discriminate in admissions against Americans of Asian descent or other racial or ethnic groups. He stated that admissions decisions are based on tests other than standardized tests and grades in high school and include factors such as interests, demonstrated leadership and history.

"We look at the person as a whole when we choose from among the thousands of highly qualified candidates," he wrote. He stated that this approach is in line with the guidelines of the Supreme Court.

Salovey offered a host of statistics to demonstrate diversity at school and said that the proportion of American students of Asian descent rose from 14% of the first year 15 years ago to 21.7% for the class that has just arrived.

Yale, he said, "will vigorously defend our ability to create a diverse and excellent university community."

Yale and other universities are subject to civil rights investigations as they receive funding from the Department of Education. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. The complaints against Yale, Dartmouth and Brown were filed two years ago.

The Justice Department already has an ongoing investigation at Harvard University and filed a case last month in support of a lawsuit against the school. The Department of Justice stated that Mr. Harvard engaged in "racial balancing" in the selection of his new class, a potential violation of the Supreme Court's affirmative action guidelines.

Harvard repeatedly denied these allegations.

The Trump administration addresses affirmative actions in a very different way from the administration of President Barack Obama, whose administration has pleaded for some programs.

In July, Trump officials overturned the Obama era by offering teachers a roadmap for the legal uses of affirmative action. Instead, he showed a preference for "race neutral" placement methods.

The Harvard case could offer the Supreme Court another opportunity to review its rules governing affirmative action. In 2016, the high court said that schools can consider race as a factor among others in the pursuit of assembling a diverse class, but it limits practice. For example, it prohibits racial quotas and says schools need to determine whether they can achieve their goals through race neutral alternatives.