DOJ Alleges Berkeley Law Gave Black Applicants Nearly Six Times Better Admission Odds Than Comparable White Candidates

Since opening a compliance review of UC Berkeley's admissions practices on March 27, 2025, and expanding it to the law school a month later, the Justice and Education Departments have built a case they made public on Wednesday, September 9, 2026: that Berkeley Law broke federal civil rights law by weighing race in who gets in.

The six-page findings letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, alleges the law school violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it selected its incoming classes of 2024 and 2025, after the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard barred race-conscious admissions.

"Berkeley Law School's deliberate efforts to circumvent the Supreme Court's decision demonstrate a complete disregard for the rule of law," Dhillon said.

The numbers DOJ is pointing to

Federal investigators say Black applicants in 2025 had 5.8 times the odds of admission as white applicants with comparable qualifications, and 6.5 times the odds in 2024, according to the letter cited by the LA Times, KQED, the Epoch Times and the Daily Signal.

KQED reported the DOJ's analysis found median LSAT scores for Black students admitted in 2024 and 2025 ran five points lower than those of admitted white and Asian students. The Epoch Times and the Daily Signal cited a more granular breakdown from the same review: roughly half of admitted Black applicants in that period had LSAT scores below 95 percent of admitted white students, and more than a third scored below 99 percent of admitted white students.

Enrollment data from October 2025 shows the law school had 1,128 students total: 516 white, 293 Asian, and 51 Black, according to figures cited by the Independent and Reuters (via WTVB-AM).

DOJ says the school's application essay prompt, which asks how applicants would "contribute diversity" and lists race and ethnicity as an example factor, functions as what the letter calls a "backdoor to solicit applicants' racial demographics," according to KQED. Investigators also cited a 2020 video in which Chemerinsky discussed "unstated affirmative action" in faculty hiring, and a June 2023 Los Angeles Times op-ed in which he wrote that colleges would need to find ways to achieve diversity "that can't be documented as violating the Constitution."

Berkeley's response

Chemerinsky rejected the findings outright. "Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way in admissions decisions," he said in a statement provided to multiple outlets. He said the school "scrupulously complies" with Proposition 209, the 1996 California constitutional amendment that already bars public universities from considering race in admissions, as well as federal statutes and the Students for Fair Admissions ruling, which he said allows schools to pursue diversity "so long as they give no preferences based on race."

Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for communications at UC Berkeley's central administration, said the university "will spare no effort to provide ample evidence" that it complies with every law and policy governing admissions.

DOJ says the data shows systematic racial preference. Chemerinsky says race is not a factor at all. Neither side has produced a court ruling or independent audit resolving which account is accurate, and this news cycle stops at competing claims, not a verdict.

The broader pattern, and what's left unresolved

Berkeley Law is not an isolated target. The LA Times reported the same civil rights division has issued similar findings against UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and UC Davis's medical school, part of what KQED describes as dozens of investigations into universities nationwide over diversity, equity and inclusion policies and campus antisemitism concerns.

A fair concern raised by civil rights advocates, though not attributed to a specific named source in this instance, is that Black enrollment at Berkeley Law is already a small fraction of the class, just 51 of 1,128 students, and that federal pressure campaigns risk pushing schools toward under-enrolling qualified minority applicants out of legal caution rather than correcting an actual quota system. These findings do not resolve whether that tradeoff is occurring.

The LA Times reported UC Berkeley has received $369.1 million from the Education Department as of September 3, 2026, and notably, the DOJ letter did not threaten to cut that funding, unlike some of the administration's other university actions.

DOJ is seeking a voluntary resolution agreement with Berkeley Law to bring admissions into compliance. If the university doesn't agree to one, the department says it will sue. No lawsuit has been filed as of this writing, and no timeline for a resolution agreement has been made public.