{"id":124548,"date":"2025-06-27T14:26:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T22:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/27\/department-of-justice-investigates-school-with-majority-white-faculty-for-racial-hiring-bias\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T14:26:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T22:26:02","slug":"department-of-justice-investigates-school-with-majority-white-faculty-for-racial-hiring-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/27\/department-of-justice-investigates-school-with-majority-white-faculty-for-racial-hiring-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Department Of Justice Investigates School With Majority White Faculty For Racial Hiring Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universityofcalifornia.edu\/about-us\/information-center\/uc-workforce-diversity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">internal data<\/a>, the University of California\u2019s faculty is 54.9% White and 22.2% Asian. Skews a little whiter than you\u2019d expect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ppic.org\/publication\/californias-population\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">based off of California\u2019s demographics<\/a>, but it doesn\u2019t scream of racial bias happening in hiring. Still, the Department of Justice wants to investigate the school system to root out the spectre of race-based hiring. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/education\/2025\/06\/26\/university-california-trump-dei-investigation-hiring-justice\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>In a letter to University of California President Michael Drake dated Thursday, the Justice Department claimed a strategic growth plan created by the UC system that mentions diversity in hiring suggests that the educational institution \u201cmay be engaged\u201d in discriminatory employment practices based on race or sex.<\/p>\n<p>In response, University of California spokesperson Rachel Zaentz said the system is \u201ccommitted to fair and lawful processes in all of our programs and activities, consistent with federal and state antidiscrimination laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The University of California system was one of the first places that schools concerned with diversity and equity looked to following <em>SFFA v. Harvard<\/em>. Affirmative action has been prohibited by California\u2019s constitution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/06\/30\/1185226895\/heres-what-happened-when-affirmative-action-ended-at-california-public-colleges\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">since Proposition 209 was voted on in 1996<\/a>. On the one hand, University of California should be the last school targeted. While they\u2019ve had goals for racial equity, year after year, they\u2019ve failed to meet them since Prop 209 became the law of the land. But pointing out a 30-year failure streak isn\u2019t enough apparently: aspiring to racial equity, even without the results, seems to run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment. Maybe the DOJ will manage to get that White faculty rate up to 100% once this is all over. I mean, make merit great again.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/education\/2025\/06\/26\/university-california-trump-dei-investigation-hiring-justice\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justice Dept. Says It Is Investigating Univ. Of California Hiring Practices<\/a> [Washington Post]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2024\/07\/suit-alleges-anti-white-bias-in-tax-law-hiring-despite-virtually-all-tax-lawyers-being-white\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Suit Alleges Anti-White Bias In Tax Law Hiring Despite Virtually All Tax Lawyers Being White<\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"288\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/06\/Chris-Williams-2025.jpg?resize=512%2C288&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1162378\" title=\"\"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:cwilliams@abovethelaw.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cwilliams@abovethelaw.com <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WritesForRent\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/06\/department-of-justice-investigates-school-with-majority-white-faculty-for-racial-hiring-bias\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Department Of Justice Investigates School With Majority White Faculty For Racial Hiring Bias<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-single__featured-image post-single__featured-image--medium alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/04\/lawyer-wagging-finger-no-GettyImages-522476526-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universityofcalifornia.edu\/about-us\/information-center\/uc-workforce-diversity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">internal data<\/a>, the University of California\u2019s faculty is 54.9% White and 22.2% Asian. Skews a little whiter than you\u2019d expect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ppic.org\/publication\/californias-population\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">based off of California\u2019s demographics<\/a>, but it doesn\u2019t scream of racial bias happening in hiring. Still, the Department of Justice wants to investigate the school system to root out the spectre of race-based hiring. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/education\/2025\/06\/26\/university-california-trump-dei-investigation-hiring-justice\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>In a letter to University of California President Michael Drake dated Thursday, the Justice Department claimed a strategic growth plan created by the UC system that mentions diversity in hiring suggests that the educational institution \u201cmay be engaged\u201d in discriminatory employment practices based on race or sex.<\/p>\n<p>In response, University of California spokesperson Rachel Zaentz said the system is \u201ccommitted to fair and lawful processes in all of our programs and activities, consistent with federal and state antidiscrimination laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The University of California system was one of the first places that schools concerned with diversity and equity looked to following <em>SFFA v. Harvard<\/em>. Affirmative action has been prohibited by California\u2019s constitution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/06\/30\/1185226895\/heres-what-happened-when-affirmative-action-ended-at-california-public-colleges\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">since Proposition 209 was voted on in 1996<\/a>. On the one hand, University of California should be the last school targeted. While they\u2019ve had goals for racial equity, year after year, they\u2019ve failed to meet them since Prop 209 became the law of the land. But pointing out a 30-year failure streak isn\u2019t enough apparently: aspiring to racial equity, even without the results, seems to run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment. Maybe the DOJ will manage to get that White faculty rate up to 100% once this is all over. I mean, make merit great again.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/education\/2025\/06\/26\/university-california-trump-dei-investigation-hiring-justice\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justice Dept. Says It Is Investigating Univ. Of California Hiring Practices<\/a> [Washington Post]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2024\/07\/suit-alleges-anti-white-bias-in-tax-law-hiring-despite-virtually-all-tax-lawyers-being-white\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Suit Alleges Anti-White Bias In Tax Law Hiring Despite Virtually All Tax Lawyers Being White<\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"288\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/06\/Chris-Williams-2025.jpg?resize=512%2C288&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1162378\" title=\"\"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#eb889c828787828a8698ab8a89849d8e9f838e878a9cc5888486\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">[email\u00a0protected] <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WritesForRent\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to internal data, the University of California\u2019s faculty is 54.9% White and 22.2% Asian. Skews a little whiter than you\u2019d expect based off of California\u2019s demographics, but it doesn\u2019t scream of racial bias happening in hiring. Still, the Department of Justice wants to investigate the school system to root out the spectre of race-based [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Chris-Williams-2025-sKqIGl.jpeg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}