For years, many have suspected that Harvard, America's oldest and most revered educational institution, has artificially tampered with the racial and gender makeup of its student body by denying admission to highly qualified white and Asian applicants in favor of members of other racial groups, even those with less impressive skills, test scores, and resumes.

Those suspicions were confirmed in 2023 when the Supreme Court determined that Harvard College and the University of North Carolina had violated the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against Asian-American applicants in their undergraduate admission processes. The decision effectively ended affirmative action admissions at the college level altogether.

Now it appears that the Harvard Law Review, perhaps the most prestigious legal journal in the country, has likewise repeatedly considered race, gender, and other personal characteristics when evaluating submissions and editorial applicants, according to a series of damning reports from the Washington Free Beacon.

'A spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission.'

When President Donald Trump retook office in January, his administration immediately picked up where the courts left off, investigating Harvard for multiple questionable practices, including alleged "race-based discrimination" at Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review.

"Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission," acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

A flawed system

The Harvard Law Review is technically an independent nonprofit that is separate from the esteemed college, university, and law school, a point often reiterated in news reports about the federal investigations into alleged discrimination. However, Harvard Law Review trades on the vaunted Harvard reputation and operates in a building located on the Harvard campus.

HLR also hires only second- and third-year Harvard Law students to serve as editors. A student-run editorial staff at a journal like HLR means that some of the most accomplished legal scholars in the world humble themselves by submitting their thoughtful legal analysis and argumentation to amateurs for approval.

Few of them succeed.

Because of its prestige, HLR and other journals like it publish just a tiny fraction of the thousands of submissions they receive. Thus, HLR can — and should — subject these submissions to a rigorous vetting process.

'The author cited 20 men by name,' one editor complained, but only '9 women and 1 non-binary scholar.'

Unfortunately, HLR student editors appear more concerned with giving members of "underrepresented groups" a platform than with publishing sound scholarship, even though a recently published HLR fact sheet insists "the Review does not consider race, ethnicity, gender, or any other protected characteristic as a basis for recommending or selecting a piece for publication."

Back on April 25, the Free Beacon revealed that it had read and analyzed internal Harvard Law Review documents that implicated the journal in what reporter Aaron Sibarium described as "pervasive race discrimination."

Sibarium, as they say, brought the receipts. According to his reports and the documents linked to them, HLR has:

encouraged prospective student editors to provide an expository statement in their applications that "will not be evaluated for quality of writing or editing" but will supposedly provide a "holistic" picture of the ways their personal "attributes or experiences" might enhance their contributions at HLR;
passed a resolution in 2021 making "the inclusion of qualified editors from underrepresented groups" its "first priority";
selected minority women almost exclusively since 2018 to write the foreword for its renowned Supreme Court issue; and
invited authors to provide their race and gender when submitting work for consideration — and included "trans"-identifying and "gender nonconforming" options in the drop-down menu.

Screenshot of HLR website

According to a 2023 HLR orientation presentation shared by the Free Beacon — a presentation that lists "diversity, equity, and inclusion" first on a slide about "living our values" — HLR receives about 3,000 submissions, presumably on an annual basis. Articles editors then use what Sibarium called a "race-conscious rubric" to drain that pool of submissions quickly by giving them a basic read and then assigning them a number between 1 and 5, with 1 being the lowest score and 5 being the highest.

Multiple drafts of the screening rubric shared by the Free Beacon highlight "diversity" — including "author diversity" and "author experience" — as a "plus" that might help HLR achieve its "goals" for a particular volume. According to these drafts of the rubric, the "diversity" component is either present and the piece therefore merits a 5 or is not and the piece is not assessed a diversity score at all.

"We should consider expediting this piece" to the next round, the explanation on the draft rubric says of those given a 5 for diversity. Diversity is the only criterium listed on the rubric that prompts readers to consider "expediting" the piece to the next level.

Screenshot of draft of Volume 138 Screening Rubric

In its fact sheet, which may have been published after the initial Free Beacon report, HLR claims it "does not expedite the consideration of articles based on an author’s race, ethnicity, gender, or other protected characteristic." The fact sheet indicates HLR mainly expedites articles in cases in which "less-established professors" have received "exploding offers" from other journals.

In 2024, just 412 submissions to the Harvard Law Review made it to the second screening phase, meaning the "race-conscious rubric" and its "diversity" criterium helped editors filter out about 86% of the total submissions the journal received, according to the Free Beacon.

Those few hundred pieces are then given closer scrutiny in what is known as the "Rotopool" phase. At this point, the identity of the author is concealed, and a randomly assigned student editor reads the piece and summarizes and assesses it in a document known as a memo.

Each of the 50 or so pieces that advance to the third phase is then given to an articles editor, who then writes a more detailed memo called an M-Read. These pieces have since been unblinded, so articles editors know the identities of the authors as well as their race and gender.

The submissions that survive an M-Read continue on through at least three more rounds of evaluation before publication. Only 12 to 16 pieces of the original 3,000 ever make it to print, the orientation presentation noted.

Photo by Spencer Grant/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

In more than 500 HLR documents from 2024 and 2025, including memos from different phases, the Free Beacon discovered the following:

"The author cited 20 men by name," one editor complained, but only "9 women and 1 non-binary scholar."
"Despite occasional references to the 'cisgendered' and 'heterosexual' power-brokers and power structures that dominate in our contemporary era … the article advances a binaristic conception of gender that does not reflect contemporary understandings of gender diversity," said another editor about an article described as a "feminist analysis of antitrust law." "The DEI values advanced by the piece are limited," the editor also lamented.
"This author is not from an underrepresented background," yet another editor noted in the "negatives" section of an M-Read memo.
One editor bemoaned that an author cited mainly "male scholars who do not appear to be from underrepresented groups" but who do represent one of the top 14 law schools in the country, abbreviated throughout the memos as "T14."
A piece by an Asian-American male scholar from Yale that made it all the way to an M-Read was ultimately cut, with one editor suggesting at a meeting about his submission, "We have too many Yale JDs and not enough Black and Latino/Latina authors," according to the meeting minutes.

While terms referring to whites and males were apparently used often as pejoratives at HLR, other racial and gender identifiers and indicators were considered bonuses in some cases. For instance, one editor made sure to mention that publishing a particular author would provide "the opportunity to elevate a female scholar from a non-T14 school earlier in her career."

One editor effused that an author cited "predominantly Black singers, rappers, and members of Twitter," while another editor — whose personal writing style seems to involve the overuse of exclamation points and the word extremely — gushed that a piece referred to "a Kendrick song in the Conclusion!"

Recommendations on a 2024 HLR spreadsheet regarding who should write the foreword for the Supreme Court issue — an especially selective process that includes members of the Women, Nonbinary, and Trans Committee as well as another diversity committee — revealed just how fixated editors were on so-called "underrepresented groups":

The candidacy of one female scholar was promoted because she would be "the first hijabi, Muslim woman to write the Foreword."
Another candidate would be "one of few Latino professors in this space."
Yet another would be "the first tenured female Asian American law professor in the US."

The Harvard Law Review did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. HLR previously indicated that the Free Beacon had "selectively" taken some old internal documents out of context.

Legal journal faces legal fallout

Fallout from the revelations in the Harvard Law Review documents has been widespread. Just three days after the initial Free Beacon report was published on April 25, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announced a joint Title VI investigation into the alleged use of "race-based criteria ... in lieu of merit-based standards" at both Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review.

The DOJ launched another probe into Harvard for alleged race-based discrimination just a few weeks later. The multifront federal investigations prompted an order for the organizations to retain and preserve their documents.

HLR then apparently retaliated against Daniel Wasserman, a recent HLR editor and Harvard Law School graduate who allegedly leaked the internal documents to the Free Beacon, has since cooperated with the feds in the investigation, and now works in the White House under deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The journal reportedly demanded that Wasserman force all parties with whom he allegedly shared the documents to "delete or return" them. Days later, HLR apparently issued Wasserman a "formal reprimand."

"This Formal Reprimand informs you that your actions violate Law Review policies and do not reflect our community expectations," the HLR disciplinary committee wrote on May 22, according to the Free Beacon, which reviewed emails about the matter. "Continued violations may give rise to additional disciplinary proceedings."

Elite institutions like Harvard have been able to get away with 'objectively un-American and discriminatory behaviors' for years because those in power have supported certain forms of race-based discrimination — until Trump.

The reprimand was rescinded just five days later, after allegations that HLR had violated federal protections for whistleblowers. HLR claimed it was not aware at the time it was issued that Wasserman was working with the government.

Former DOJ civil rights division official Jason Torchinsky likened HLR's apparently punitive efforts against Wasserman to witness intimidation.

"What do they call it when a criminal tries to intimidate the witness?" Torchinsky said, according to the Free Beacon. "If you know someone is a witness in a federal investigation, and you try to intimidate them into stopping cooperation with the government, that in itself is its own offense."

Wasserman declined a request for comment from the New York Times.

In response to a request for comment, the Department of Education directed Blaze News to the press release about the investigation. Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Alexander "Shabbos" Kestenbaum, who graduated from Harvard with a master's degree in religion in 2024, filed a lawsuit against Harvard in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing anti-Semitism that erupted on campus. The plaintiffs claimed the school allowed anti-Semitism to grow and intensify without consequence, resulting in "antisemitic discrimination and abuse."

Kestenbaum told Blaze News that elite institutions like Harvard have been able to get away with "objectively un-American and discriminatory behaviors" for years because those in power have supported certain forms of race-based discrimination — until Trump.

"Up until President Trump, we never had a government — we certainly never had a White House — who was interested in upholding the law and investigating these universities because in many instances, like with President Biden, they actually agreed with these policies that you should artificially elevate individuals based on their sexual orientation, based on their ethnic makeup, based on their racial identities," he explained.

This group of the "cultural elite," Kestenbaum continued, simply does not believe that anti-white, anti-male, or anti-Jewish discrimination is "wrong."

"They actually believe in what Harvard is doing."

Kestenbaum and other plaintiffs reached an undisclosed settlement with Harvard just a few weeks ago. The university did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Others are likewise incensed by the apparent discrimination scandal at HLR.

Scott Yenor, a political science professor at Boise State University and the senior director of state coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, told Blaze News: "The HLR practices violate the current understanding of the law, though they are the almost inevitable conclusion of the disparate-impact regime that the Trump admin and Sec. of Ed. Linda McMahon are seeking to get out of our so-called elite institutions."

Aaron Sibarium suggested in a statement to Blaze News that racial discrimination is just one problem at HLR and that the journal should reconsider its entire business model.

The documents from the law review don't just reveal a pattern of race-based decision-making. They illustrate the downsides of a system in which publication decisions are made by students who haven’t even passed the bar.

Whether they submit to the Harvard Law Review or some other journal, legal academics do not have the benefit of a jury of their peers. They are at the mercy of second- and third-year law students — many of them to the left of the average law professor — whose judgments of scholarly merit are saturated with ideological influence.

That’s not to say the peer-review process in other disciplines is apolitical. But it may provide a baseline of maturity and expertise that — if the documents from Harvard are any indication — many law students seem to lack.

Editor's note: Matthew Peterson, the editor in chief of Blaze News, is a Washington fellow for the Claremont Institute.

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Higher ed’s shield shatters under Trump’s new directive

The Department of Education on Wednesday delivered a long-overdue strike against the activist university system. While headlines focused on Columbia University, the message was broader: Every institution living off federal student loan money now faces pressure from two sides — financial scrutiny and accreditation reform.

As a professor inside the academic machine, I can say this is exactly the disruption higher education needs. If we want universities to educate rather than indoctrinate, this is the pressure point to hit.

The executive order doesn’t just challenge accreditation. It exposes the hypocrisy at the core of modern academia.

One of Donald Trump’s core campaign promises was to overhaul how universities receive accreditation. Most Americans don’t realize it, but accreditation is the golden ticket. Without it, colleges can’t rake in billions from student loans and federal grants. And yet, the organizations in charge of accreditation have turned a blind eye to blatant, systemic discrimination.

They’ve allowed public violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — discrimination under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Conservative faculty are nearly extinct. In DEI-infused hiring committees, ideology has replaced merit. If the roles were reversed, the left would call this what it is: systemic discrimination.

On April 23, Trump signed an executive order titled “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.” Its aim is simple: to upend the broken accreditation process and hold universities accountable for civil rights violations.

Here’s the language that has the ivory tower in a panic:

The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall ... investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American law schools that is advanced by the Council, including unlawful "diversity, equity, and inclusion" requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.

Translation: Universities are finally being forced to follow the anti-discrimination laws they pretend to champion.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon followed up by naming Columbia University, noting that the school “looked the other way as Jewish students faced harassment.” That broke Title VI protections. No revocation yet — but the accreditor has been notified. Unless Columbia takes corrective action, its funding could be in jeopardy.

This isn’t just about Columbia. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Harvard unlawfully discriminated with its admissions practices. Elite schools have behaved as if laws don’t apply to them. Now, they’re finding out otherwise.

The rot runs deeper. Across the country, universities have quietly purged conservatives, Christians, and dissenters in favor of radicals, atheists, and left-wing ideologues. Hiring committees dismiss this as "meritocracy" while ensuring no one to the right of Bernie Sanders gets tenure.

Photo by Zhu Ziyu/VCG via Getty Images

At Arizona State University, where I teach, we boast a student body that is 70% female — while faculty can’t even define “woman.” That imbalance raises serious questions. Are men now a legally protected group under Title VI? They should be. Universities that brand masculinity as "toxic" while ignoring misandry are engaged in discrimination, plain and simple.

This moment marks a shift. For decades, the university system cloaked itself in moral superiority while wielding tax dollars like a cudgel. But now, the empire is wobbling. Institutions that once policed speech and purity tests may finally have to explain themselves.

The executive order doesn’t just challenge accreditation. It exposes the hypocrisy at the core of modern academia. Universities broke the law. Now they’re being forced to live under it.

And maybe — just maybe — future professors won’t need to hide their beliefs to keep their jobs. That’s the kind of education reform America deserves.

Blaze News original: Obama, Biden set stage for Trump's derailing of Harvard's gravy train

The Trump administration has explicitly threatened, and in some cases suspended, the funding of universities across the country, citing violations of federal law and policy.

Amid this governmental campaign to fight anti-Semitism on campus, keep men out of women's sports, maximize viewpoint diversity, eliminate discriminatory DEI practices, and kick divisive critical race theory programming to the curb, Harvard University has emerged as the administration's white whale.

Democrats and other leftists have, through their overreactions to the administration's handling of Harvard, given away their own suspicions that the 389-year-old institution's neutralization as a political entity and restoration to former glory would mark a turning point — perhaps not an end to the left's long march through the institutions but certainly a landmark arrest of the American campus slide into lawlessness, lunacy, and identitarianism.

This concern appears to ground Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer's (N.Y.) statement, "The Trump administration is making unprecedented demands of universities aimed at undermining or even destroying these vital institutions."

'Tactics like these likely will have massive long-term consequences.'

"Universities must do more to fight antisemitism on campus, but the administration should not use it as an excuse for a broad and extra-legal attack on these institutions," continued Schumer. "Harvard is right to resist."

The concern similarly lurks in the background of Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop's assertion that "the assault on Harvard is part of a broader Trumpian assault on elite universities, which is itself part of a yet broader federal assault on progressive institutions and groups deemed enemies of the president."

Prokop added, "Tactics like these likely will have massive long-term consequences, forever transforming the relationship between the federal government and academia."

Despite the alarmist rhetoric peddled by activists and Democratic lawmakers, the Trump administration's insistence that institutional beneficiaries of federal funding hold up their ends of the bargain — especially in the case of Harvard University — appears to be neither unlawful nor unprecedented.

While the Trump administration is less ambiguous in its language and more confrontational with its actions — which have in a number of cases already borne fruit — it is simply exercising muscles previously flexed by previous governments to ensure federally funded universities comply with federal civil rights law and public policy.

Now

The Trump administration has threatened, frozen, and/or temporarily suspended federal funding to a number of schools in recent months. For example, the administration:

temporarily paused U.S. Department of Agriculture funding to the University of Maine System while ensuring its seven universities and law school were in compliance with Title IX and Title VI, which ban sex and race-based discrimination;
brought Columbia University to heel by announcing the end of $400 million worth of grants and contracts after the institution failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic attacks;
froze over $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University amid investigations of anti-Semitism and racial discrimination;
threatened to freeze $510 million of Brown University's federal funding amid investigations into the institution's DEI initiatives and alleged anti-Semitism;
paused around $210 million in research grants to Princeton University pending an investigation — reportedly opened by the Biden Department of Education in 2024 — into anti-Semitism on campus; and
suspended approximately $175 million in grants and contracts to the University of Pennsylvania over its policies enabling men to compete in women's sports.

While the Trump administration has taken a similar approach to Harvard, the country's oldest university has proven a tougher nut to crack.

Blaze News previously reported that the administration notified Harvard University President Alan Garber and Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, on April 11 that billions of dollars in federal funds were at stake unless the institution agreed to implement a number of "critical reforms."

'Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions.'

The government specifically asked for Harvard's cooperation in implementing these reforms:

foster "clear lines of authority and accountability," empower tenured professors who are devoted to the scholarly mission of the university, reduce the power held by students and untenured faculty, and reduce forms of governance bloat;
adopt merit-based hiring and admissions policies and cease all discriminatory admissions, hiring, promotion, and compensation practices;
"reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism";
commission an external party to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity;
reform programs with "egregious records of anti-Semitism or other bias";
eliminate DEI-based policies; and
clamp down on student disruptions and misconduct.

The university, which has an endowment of $53.2 billion, initially responded by suggesting the necessary reforms were already underway and that the Trump administration's demands were unlawful.

Barack Obama, a Democrat whose administration threatened its fair share of universities' federal funding, was among the liberals who celebrated Harvard's defiance, writing, "Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect."

'That stops under the Trump Administration.'

Evidently not interested in playing Obama-supported games, the Trump administration provided the Massachusetts university with a steady stream of bad news.

For starters,

the administration reportedly launched a review of around $9 billion in grants and contracts with the university over possible violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act;
the Education Department's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a $2.2 billion freeze in multi-year grants and a $60 million freeze in multi-year contract value to Harvard;
the National Institutes of Health reportedlytold grant managers to halt disbursements to Harvard;
the Department of Homeland security announced the cancellation of two six-figure grants and indicated the university's ability to enroll foreign students was in jeopardy; and
the administration appeared poised at the time of writing to pull $1 billion of Harvard's funding for health research.

Julie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, told Blaze News in a statement, "The Department has given Columbia and Harvard every opportunity to come into compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws."

"On March 10, OCR sent letters to both universities reminding them of their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus," continued Hartman. "ED has also attempted multiple times to engage in negotiations with both of these universities, and the Department hopes to continue negotiating with them to protect students' civil rights."

"In the past, educational entities were allowed to violate Title VI with little to no enforcement action from the federal government," added the ED spokeswoman. "That stops under the Trump Administration. We will not allow taxpayer funds to sponsor discrimination against American students."

After the administration began derailing the school's gravy train, Harvard doubled down on its defiance.

When announcing the university's lawsuit against the administration on April 21, Harvard President Alan Garber suggested that the pause on injections of taxpayer dollars into his wealthy institution were "unlawful and beyond the government's authority."

"These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world," wrote Garber.

Garber is hardly the first in recent weeks to suggest the Trump administration's handling of Harvard's defiance was somehow unlawful, harmful, or unprecedented.

Andrew Tyrie, senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, previously told the Harvard Gazette, "This is weakening the United States and imperiling the prosperity and the security of millions of Americans."

'This is the first time an administration has tried something like this.'

Joshua Cherniss, an associate political theory professor at Georgetown University, said, "I study, to some extent, authoritarian regimes, and I think that some of what we're seeing — while it's not equivalent to fully formed authoritarianism — is starting to approach it in terms of trying to have the government dictate the ideas that are taught, that can be expressed and that can't be expressed."

While there has been much of this pearl-clutching about threats to Harvard's gravy train, there has also been shirt-rending over the Trump administration's threat to Harvard's tax-exempt status.

Trump recently wrote, "Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?' Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!"

"To my knowledge, this is the first time an administration has tried something like this," said R. William Snyder, a professor at the business college of George Mason University, told CNN. "The whole purpose of higher education is to educate the masses. Just because they educate in a way that you don't like, is that grounds to terminate their tax-exempt status? I'd say no."

Contrary to these critics' suggestions, this was not, however, the first time an administration threatened tax-exempt status or funding.

Then

Like Synder, many critics of the president's proposal to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status appeared to strategically develop long-term memory loss.

Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo and Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett were, however, happy to remind such critics that should Harvard lose its tax-exempt status over alleged noncompliance with federal law or policy, it wouldn't be the first.

Bob Jones University, a private university in Greenville, South Carolina, had racist policies on its books in the mid-20th century — including prohibitions on interracial dating and marriage. Determining that the school's discriminatory policies did not serve a public purpose and were contrary to established public policy, the IRS revoked the school's tax-exempt status in 1975. This decision prompted a heated legal battle.

Ultimately, in Bob Jones University v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in 1983 that the IRS had authority to deny status to Bob Jones University, Goldsboro Christian School, and other institutions with racist policies.

Powerline recently noted that Harvard, like BJU, has already been found by the Supreme Court to engage in illegal race discrimination — meaning the path to status revocation might be an altogether simpler matter, assuming an activist judge isn't ready to throw more caltrops before the administration.

Just as revoking a misaligned university's tax-exempt status would be nothing new, the Trump administration's threats to universities' federal funding are similarly business as usual.

While the Trump administration has followed through by suspending or freezing funding to a number of universities for their alleged noncompliance with federal law and policy, the Biden administration appeared keen to do something similar — efforts that in a number of cases resulted in agreements and resolutions.

In the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the Biden Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened hundreds of investigations into complaints about anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While such investigations are customarily backed by the implicit threat of suspending noncompliant schools' federal funding, NPR noted that Biden officials expressly threatened to cut funding to schools that failed to take aggressive remedial action.

The Education Department noted in its 2024 fiscal year annual report that the University of Illinois, Drexel University, and Brown University remedied compliance concerns identified by the OCR, thereby preserving their funding.

While concerns were expressed about the possibility that these investigations could chill free speech on campus, critics were not up in arms as they are now.

There also does not appear to have been leftist apoplexy when years earlier, the first Trump administration's Education Department OCR took the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to task after concluding on the basis of nearly 400 reports of sexual harassment and sexual violence that the institution was out of compliance with Title IX. The government ultimately secured a resolution agreement with the school in place of fines or denial of funding.

The Obama administration similarly threatened federal funding for schools that fell out of line with federal law and policy without the same volume of uproar seen today.

For instance, the Obama Education Department's OCR came after Tufts University for Title IX violations, specifically with regard to its handling of sexual harassment and misconduct complaints. It also notified schools that noncompliance with Title IX could result in the OCR initiating "proceedings to withdraw Federal funding by the Department or refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for litigation."

In 2016, the Obama administration circulated guidance stating that so-called gender identity was protected under Title IX.

Politico noted at the time that the advisory included "a threat that the Obama administration has leveled against North Carolina in the standoff over the state's law blocking legal protections for gay and transgender individuals: If a state fails to comply with the administration's interpretation of the law, it runs the risk of being sued by the federal government and losing federal funding, particularly for education."

In April 2011, the Obama ED OCR established mandates requiring universities to reduce students' due process rights. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression indicated that failure on the part of universities to heed the regulations, which were announced in a letter from then-Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali, faced federal investigation and a potential loss of federal funding.

Obama also proposed shifting federal funding away from universities perceived as failing to keep net tuition down.

The previous two Democratic administrations appear to have liberally threatened schools' funding without the accompaniment of a chorus of doomsdayers warning of the coming peril and civilizational harms. Their threats also paved the way for those issued in recent weeks by the Trump administration.

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Feds probe ASU for racial bias — will other universities be held accountable?

Arizona State University was among a lengthy list of institutions under federal investigation this week for violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a provision designed to prevent discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in federally funded programs. This should be noncontroversial. Yet, universities across the country are engaging in systemic discrimination disguised as social justice under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Universities justify racial discrimination by applying the Marxist dialectic of “oppressor versus oppressed,” now repackaged in academic jargon as “privileged versus marginalized.” They argue that so-called marginalized groups require extra resources to address past injustices, assigning “oppressor” status based on skin color, sex, and religion.

University administrators who implemented these discriminatory DEI programs should issue a public apology — for starters.

At ASU, for example, DEI employee training explicitly labels “whiteness” and “heteronormativity” as inherent oppressor categories. The training presents as fact — not as one perspective among many — that America has always been a white supremacist nation. Faculty are expected to accept this assertion without question.

I am currently suing ASU to stop this required DEI training. Instead of acknowledging its discriminatory nature, the university defends it in court.

ASU’s inclusive charter has been weaponized into a Marxist dialectic that teaches students to hate the United States and Christianity. The school explains its practices by referring to its charter, which emphasizes “inclusion.” Obviously, a taxpayer-funded university should be inclusive. In practice, however, ASU’s definition of inclusion means privileging some groups — the so-called marginalized — over others — the so-called oppressors.

And how do they determine who belongs to which category? Skin color, sex, and religion.

This is not education; it is indoctrination. Yet, professors often claim, “You cannot discriminate against white people because they are the oppressors.” At one event I attended, a speaker stated it was time to “take white men down a notch.” These people are entrusted with teaching your children — on your dime.

Discrimination in DEI

The Title VI investigation at ASU and 39 other universities targets the Ph.D. Project, a program that provides networking and career opportunities for doctoral students but excludes participants based on race. This is blatant racial discrimination. The program defends its practices using the same Marxist logic — arguing that historic injustices justify present-day racial “preferences.”

ASU reinforced this reasoning in 2023 when it hosted Ibram X. Kendi for the A. Wade Smith and Elsie Moore Memorial Lecture on Race Relations. Kendi’s stance, repeated many times over, is clear: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.”

That argument fails both legally and morally. In contrast, President Donald Trump’s Department of Education made its position explicit: “The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination.”

For decades, universities positioned themselves as defenders of civil rights. Now, they are being exposed for violating those very principles. The irony would be amusing if it weren’t so destructive.

From racism to anti-Semitism

ASU isn’t just under investigation for racial discrimination — it is also one of 60 universities under federal scrutiny for anti-Semitism. This is particularly rich coming from the same academics who spent the last decade yelling that “Trump is Hitler.” And yet, the Department of Education now says:

The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year. University leaders must do better.

Professors support Hamas, leave their Jewish students open to harassment, and yet take to social media to denounce Elon Musk as a Nazi. They need to look in the mirror. Maybe the Department of Education will help them do so.

University administrators who imposed these discriminatory DEI programs should start by issuing a public apology — not just to Jewish students but to all who have suffered under their race-based policies, as well as to the taxpayers who fund them.

If they refuse, it reveals one simple truth: They have not changed their beliefs. More likely, they will resort to bureaucratic rebranding, repackaging the same DEI policies under a new name while continuing business as usual.

A path forward

The only way to break this cycle is to dismantle the oppressor/oppressed dialectic in all its forms. The Marxist framework behind DEI must be exposed for what it is — a pseudoscientific ideology that justifies discrimination under the guise of justice. It aligns with those who oppose the United States. Parents, students, and faculty must demand transparency and reject participation in discriminatory programs.

Federal investigations are a step in the right direction, but they are not enough. Universities like ASU must face accountability — not just legally but intellectually. Public universities should be required to disclose what professors teach in their classrooms. Taxpayer-funded faculty must be held responsible for their actions like any other government employee.

The woke university system has long relied on an illusion of moral authority, but that illusion is crumbling. Under its leadership, the worst forms of discrimination have flourished, and those who cry loudest about justice have been the worst offenders. The question is: Will we seize this moment to force real change, or will we allow these institutions to rebrand and continue their deception under a new name?

Texan Allegedly Bullied By School Over His Skin Color, Trump Support Asks Supreme Court To Take His Case

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-10-at-7.10.43 PM-e1739236720764-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-10-at-7.10.43%5Cu202fPM-e1739236720764-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]In the spirit of San Jacinto, Warden’s case represents a key battle over a new frontier: racism against white people.

‘Hostile Environment’: University Failed To Address Hundreds Of Complaints Alleging Harassment Of Jewish Students

'Serious Title VI noncompliance'

Exposed: Harvard's elite law journal accused of discriminating against white men

A flawed system

Legal journal faces legal fallout

University Of Virginia’s DEI-Obsessed President Resigns In Disgrace

To Execute The Trump Agenda, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Cannot Be Stuck Understaffed

Higher ed’s shield shatters under Trump’s new directive

Exclusive: Fairfax County Schools Slapped With Federal Complaint Over Race Discrimination

Blaze News original: Obama, Biden set stage for Trump's derailing of Harvard's gravy train

Now

Then

Feds probe ASU for racial bias — will other universities be held accountable?

Discrimination in DEI

From racism to anti-Semitism

A path forward

Harmeet Dhillon Says Corporations With DEI Racial Quotas Could Be Prosecuted For Civil Rights Violations

Texan Allegedly Bullied By School Over His Skin Color, Trump Support Asks Supreme Court To Take His Case

Drug middlemen launch attacks against MAGA allies pushing for health care reforms

With Latest Federal Abortion Funding Order, Obama Judge Takes Judicial Tyranny To A New Level

Kamala Harris Ignored Memos Urging Her To Break From Biden and Court Moderate Voters, New Book Reveals

Trump's inner circle under attack: AI fraudster impersonates Rubio to manipulate top officials

Liz Wheeler unleashes fury: FIRE Pam Bondi over Epstein cover-up scandal!

A flawed system

Legal journal faces legal fallout

Now

Then

Discrimination in DEI

From racism to anti-Semitism

A path forward

We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.