The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint against Yale University on October 8, 2020. Its closely tracked those made against Harvard College by a private advocacy group, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). That is, DOJ maintained that Yale discriminated against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions program, engaging in unconstitutional racial balancing. Yale denied the allegations in various press releases, but there was little if any activity in the lawsuit itself. The Biden administration then, predictably, dropped the lawsuit on February 3, 2021, albeit did state that it would continue an “underlying investigation” into Yale’s admissions policies, with Yale pledging to cooperate in that matter.
SFFA had sought to intervene in the initial lawsuit, but was denied permission to do so. It then filed its own complaint against Yale on February 25, 2021. It repeated the allegations made in the initial lawsuit by DOJ and in SFFA’s suit against Harvard, in effect both contesting the continuing viability of Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and, if Grutter remains good law, the methods used by Yale to screen and admit its entering classes.
The case is currently pending before District Judge Kary A. Dooley in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. It will almost certainly require protracted discovery and then a lengthy bench trial. It is accordingly highly unlikely that there will be any developments of any significance for several months.
Affirmative Action Debate 