John D. Sailer The Justice Department’s Welcome Crackdown on Universities Higher education has long engaged in racial discrimination in hiring.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/justice-department-letter-racial-discrimination-university-hiring

On July 29, the Department of Justice sent a letter to all federal grant recipients reaffirming a longstanding principle of American civil rights law: discrimination is unlawful. The nine-page memo, signed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, lists several hiring practices that constitute illegal discrimination—many of them ubiquitous in higher education.

For years, I’ve reported on race-based hiring in academia. I’ve repeatedly found that American universities act with impunity. As a professor once told me, “every day, the universities wake up and break the law.” It’s not surprising, then, that universities have embraced virtually every practice that the DOJ deems illegal. That could mean serious consequences. The DOJ’s announcement offers “best practices” that will help institutions avoid “the revocation of federal grant funding.” If the department enforces its guidance, America’s institutions of higher education face a massive reckoning.

One practice that the DOJ lists as unlawful is “[p]referential treatment.” This occurs when an employer gives benefits to “individuals or groups based on protected characteristics in a way that disadvantages other qualified persons.” Any institution that “prioritizes candidates from ‘underrepresented groups’” violates the law.