AG Bondi launches investigation into DEI admissions policies at Stanford, University of California schools

Attorney General Pam Bondi directed compliance review investigations Thursday into admissions policies at Stanford University and multiple University of California schools.

The investigation, headed by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, will look into diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies at Stanford; University of California, Berkeley; UCLA; and the University of California, Irvine. 

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellow of Harvard Coll., colleges and universities are prohibited from using DEI discrimination in admissions.

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is demanding compliance.

“President [Donald] Trump and I are dedicated to ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity across the country,” Bondi said. “Every student in America deserves to be judged solely based on their hard work, intellect and character, not the color of their skin.”

For decades, elite colleges and universities “prioritized racial quotas over equality of opportunity,” according to a news release from the DOJ’s public affairs office.

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The DOJ claims the practice divided Americans and discriminated against entire groups of applicants.

The Trump administration this week filed an emergency Supreme Court appeal, which, if granted, would allow the slashing of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the Education Department.

Fox News Digital reported this week that multiple Virginia colleges cut their DEI departments and initiatives, falling in line with Trump’s executive order directives. 

The prior administration “advanced the ideology behind this illegal practice and did nothing to protect the civil rights of American students,” the DOJ wrote in the release.

“The Department of Justice will put an end to a shameful system in which someone’s race matters more than their ability,” said acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle. “Every college and university should know that illegal discrimination in admissions will be investigated and eliminated.”

The compliance investigations into these universities “are just the beginning of the department’s work in eradicating illegal DEI and protecting equality under the law,” according to the DOJ.

Fox News Digital’s Jeffrey Clark and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.