DOJ Probes University of California Over Alleged Race and Sex Hiring Quotas

The Justice Department cites potential civil rights violations in the University of California’s systemwide plan to diversify graduate programs and faculty.

Students walking on Library Walk at University of California San Diego campus on Dec. 5, 2024. Jane Yang/The Epoch Times

The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the University of California (UC) system to determine whether its efforts to boost faculty diversity run afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws.

In a June 26 announcement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that it is probing whether the university’s “UC 2030 Capacity Plan” and related campus-level programs constitute a pattern or practice of unlawful employment discrimination based on race and sex, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Public employers are bound by federal laws that prohibit racial and other employment discrimination,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the department’s Civil Rights Division. “Institutional directives that use race- and sex-based hiring practices expose employers to legal risk under federal law.”

According to the Justice Department, the UC system’s strategic hiring plan explicitly encourages campuses to measure and increase the number of new hires by race and sex to meet internal diversity targets. Officials described the framework as potentially unlawful, citing provisions in the plan that direct campuses to recruit “diverse” faculty in line with demographic benchmarks.

The UC 2030 Capacity Plan outlines several such goals, including the recruitment of at least 40 percent of its graduate students from its own undergraduate programs and from other minority-serving institutions, including Hispanic-serving institutions, historically black colleges and universities, and tribal colleges and universities. The plan also outlines a goal to hire more than 1,100 new ladder-rank faculty members by 2030—an effort the university says will help diversify its academic workforce, noting that new hires tend to be more diverse than the existing faculty.

“Identity-based hiring is not only wrong—it is illegal,” Dhillon wrote in a post on social media. “Public employers ignore our civil rights laws at their peril.”

A request for comment sent to the University of California by The Epoch Times was not immediately returned.

A university spokesperson told The Hill that the university “is committed to fair and lawful processes in all of our programs and activities, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.”

“The University also aims to foster a campus environment where everyone is welcomed and supported. We will work in good faith with the Department of Justice as it conducts its investigation,” the spokesperson said.

The probe marks the latest in a series of moves by the federal government targeting higher education policies seen as promoting identity-based ideologies and practices. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued executive orders prohibiting federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, saying such programs violate anti-discrimination laws and undermine “national unity” and “traditional American values.”

“These illegal ... policies also threaten the safety of American men, women, and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society,” Trump said in a Jan. 21 executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.”

In recent years, a number of U.S. colleges have adopted DEI frameworks. A 2023 report by The Heritage Foundation found that 81 percent of surveyed community colleges had some form of DEI infrastructure, such as mission statements, staff, or task forces. At institutions with more than 10,000 students, that figure climbed to 96 percent. The larger the school, the more likely it was to institutionalize DEI.

Since Trump resumed office and began enforcing restrictions on race and identity-based funding, a number of colleges and universities have begun scaling back or dismantling their diversity programs to maintain eligibility for federal support.