The U.S. Department of Justice has accused the University of California, Berkeley School of Law of deliberately discriminating against white and Asian applicants while favoring Black applicants in admissions for the classes of 2024 and 2025.
In a six-page letter sent Wednesday, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said Berkeley Law continued to violate federal civil rights law even after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious college admissions in 2023. “The evidence shows that Berkeley Law deliberately discriminates against applicants based on race,” Dhillon wrote, according to The New York Post.
The department pointed to previous comments by Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as evidence that the school sought ways around the Supreme Court’s decision. Before the ruling, Chemerinsky told The New Yorker that schools could replace the “explicit use of race” with “proxies for race.”
At a later conference, Chemerinsky said, “If it’s presented with strong race neutral justifications, I think it’s much more likely to be allowed,” adding, “And I think it’s very important not to talk about it in terms of it being an attempt to circumvent the decision.”
Investigators also cited a video in which Chemerinsky discussed “unstated affirmative action” in faculty hiring. “You can think it, you can vote it,” he told the audience, “but our discussions are not privileged, so don’t ever articulate that that’s what you’re doing!”
Dhillon wrote that Chemerinsky “has repeatedly expressed his intention to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling in SFFA” and “has expressed his willingness to hide his discrimination if caught.”
Chemerinsky denied the department’s accusations and said Berkeley Law does not consider race when making admissions decisions.
“University of California, Berkeley School of Law in its admissions decisions scrupulously complies with Proposition 209, federal statutes, and the United States Constitution. Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way in admissions decisions,” Chemerinsky said. “Proposition 209, federal statutes, and the Supreme Court’s decisions do not preclude schools from pursuing diversity so long as they give no preferences based on race. Berkeley Law does not do so.”
University officials issued a similar statement, noting that Berkeley has been subject since 1996 to Proposition 209, the California constitutional amendment prohibiting the consideration of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public admissions and employment.
“UC Berkeley is committed to ensuring that every student is admitted based on their merit, and not on their race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin,” officials said. They added that the university “will spare no effort to provide ample evidence showing that the university complies with all relevant laws, policies and rules governing admissions.”
The Justice Department said Berkeley’s application materials invited applicants to explain how their “perspective, experience, Voice” would contribute to diversity and expressly permitted them to discuss “race/ethnicity.”
Investigators said that after controlling for LSAT scores, undergraduate grade-point averages and race, Black applicants in 2025 had 5.8 times greater odds of admission than comparable white applicants. The disparity was even greater in 2024, when Black applicants had 6.5 times greater odds of admission. Asian applicants faced a similar disadvantage relative to Black applicants, according to the department.
From 2021 through 2025, the median LSAT score among admitted Black students was approximately five points lower than the median scores for admitted white and Asian students. “The magnitude and durability of the race preferences confirmed by Berkeley Law’s applicant-level data could not reasonably have occurred by chance,” Dhillon wrote.
The findings follow a Justice Department allegation in May that UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine considered race in admissions and discriminated against white and Asian applicants. Berkeley Law, meanwhile, fell three places to No. 16 in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, dropping out of the traditional top-14 group for the first time. The school has declined to participate in the rankings process since 2022.
UC Berkeley receives more than $369 million in Department of Education funding. The Justice Department is seeking a voluntary resolution agreement requiring changes to the law school’s admissions and oversight practices. The department also cited the university’s refusal to provide requested information.
“This discrimination is ongoing,” Dhillon wrote.
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