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Students for Fair Admissions, the group whose lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina led the Supreme Court to strike down race-conscious admissions, wrote letters Tuesday to the general counsels of three other universities—Yale, Princeton and Duke Universities—asking for details about their admissions processes.
Yale and Princeton reported a smaller decline in Black and Hispanic enrollment this fall than many of their peers; Duke actually reported an increase. All three also reported declines in the proportion of Asian Americans in their classes: six percentage points at Yale and Duke and two points at Princeton.
The letters, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, said SFFA was “deeply concerned” that the institutions were not complying with the affirmative action ban. They pointed to colleges that reported substantial increases in Asian American enrollment, such as MIT, as counterexamples. The group threatened to sue Yale, Duke and Princeton if the universities did not provide detailed explanations of their demographic trends, a preview of a potential litigative onslaught targeting selective colleges that did not report substantial dips in diversity.
“Your racial numbers are not possible without substantially increasing socioeconomic preferences and eliminating legacy preferences, yet you’ve announced no such changes, and you’ve reported no substantial increase in the number of students receiving Pell grants,” the letter said. “SFFA is prepared to enforce Harvard against you through litigation. You are now on notice.”
Yale was the subject of a 2021 lawsuit by SFFA over affirmative action, which the university settled in September 2023. The agreement included assurances from Yale that it would enforce the ban on race-conscious admissions and take steps to prevent admissions officers from accessing demographic data.
