DOJ Opens Investigation Into William & Mary Over Race-Restricted Scholarships

The Justice Department's campaign against race-based preferences in higher education has a new target: the College of William & Mary.

The DOJ notified the Williamsburg, Virginia school it's investigating scholarships and financial aid programs across multiple divisions, including the Law School and the School of Education, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. William & Mary has until September 8 to turn over records and cooperate with investigators.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said the probe followed an internal audit of the college's aid programs. Her assessment was blunt.

"I won't say they're being evasive," Dhillon told Bloomberg in an August 17 interview at the outlet's Washington office. "They're openly continuing to offer scholarships and opportunities restricted to graduates of historically Black colleges and universities. That's illegal. They're not hiding it."

The scholarships under review aren't formally limited to applicants of one race on paper. But DOJ investigators flagged language giving "preference" or "top consideration" to "diverse people and perspectives," according to a letter from Dhillon's office. Some of the funds trace back to efforts specifically meant to address the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination against African Americans at a school founded in the 1690s.

That history matters. William & Mary and schools like it built targeted scholarship programs because Black Americans faced formal exclusion from higher education for generations. Defenders of race-conscious aid argue these programs are a narrow, targeted remedy for documented historical exclusion, not a broad racial quota system. That's a serious argument, and it deserves to be stated plainly rather than waved away.

But the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard didn't carve out an exception for remedial history. It banned the use of race as a factor in admissions and, by extension in DOJ's reading, in aid tied to admission. Dhillon's letter states the department's position directly: "The department will not turn a blind eye to race-based preferences, however they are packaged or portrayed by universities."

In a statement, William & Mary said it is "committed to equitable learning environments across our campus and complying with all state and federal laws," adding that it does not comment on pending legal matters.

William & Mary is not an outlier target. It's the latest entry in a growing list. Earlier in August, the DOJ concluded that Duke University School of Law's admissions practices discriminated based on race. In May, the department made a similar finding against Yale School of Medicine. Harvard remains under separate federal scrutiny as well, including a probe opened in June alleging the university granted financial aid preferences to Chinese students due to the influence of foreign donors.

If DOJ ultimately confirms violations at William & Mary and the school doesn't resolve them voluntarily, the college risks losing federal financial aid funding. Dhillon said as much directly: "If there is a finding that is sustained and the institution doesn't immediately remedy it, cutting off their federal funding is absolutely the outcome. That will happen to some institutions if they refuse to change."

Not every school is fighting the DOJ. Dhillon pointed to the University of North Carolina as one that came to the table preemptively, offering to show its work on admissions compliance. She said other university presidents have approached her directly to try to resolve potential conflicts without public fights.

William & Mary is at least the third Virginia college to draw DOJ scrutiny since President Trump returned to office, following investigations into the University of Virginia, which led to a resignation and eventual settlement, and a finding against George Mason University over its hiring practices.

The Bigger Admissions Fight

The William & Mary probe lands amid a broader argument over whether elite schools are complying with Students for Fair Admissions in spirit or just on paper. The Daily Signal, drawing on New York Post reporting, has pointed to cases like Mission High School in San Francisco, where a 45% acceptance rate to UC Berkeley coexists with just 6% of 11th graders scoring proficient in math and 17% in English on the 2025 state assessment, according to state testing data cited by the Post. Critics cited in that reporting argue schools are using proxies — geography, essays, "diverse perspectives" language — to functionally recreate racial balancing without naming race directly.

This is a separate legal question from the William & Mary case, which involves financial aid restricted by institutional affiliation (HBCU graduate status) rather than admissions criteria. Both threads point to the same underlying fight: whether universities are complying with the letter of the 2023 ruling while working around its intent.

No charges have been filed and no funding has been cut. The school's compliance deadline of September 8 is the next concrete checkpoint, after which the DOJ will determine whether William & Mary's response resolves the matter or whether the case proceeds toward a funding fight like the one already underway in the department's separate, long-running talks with Harvard.