Duke Law Case Shows Why the Fight Against DEI in Higher Education Isn’t Over
16th August 2026
The battle to end DEI in higher education is one that can only be won through attrition against a stubborn enemy that won’t back away from the ideology that created it.
One might think that the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court decision that prohibited racial discrimination in college admissions would have put an end to the issue. It didn’t. At least some of America’s top schools unsurprisingly appear to be doing their best to dance around the courts and the law.
For those who’ve paid attention to how higher education has behaved in recent decades, it was clear that many schools would find ways to cheat the system. It’s all the rage these days for students and administrators, I guess.
That looks to be the case at Duke Law school. The Department of Justice recently accused the school of responding to the Supreme Court decision by creating a stealthier way to discriminate.
The Department of Justice said that following the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision “Duke Law emphasized racial diversity in admissions and engaged in a deliberate effort to preserve race-based outcomes for its incoming classes.”
The school highlighted “DEI” as one of the school’s “most important values” in late 2023 according to internal communications obtained by the DOJ and pledged to “work even harder” to admit “a racially diverse class.”