In related but separate actions, the Department of Education and Health and Human Services have opened discrimination actions against Duke University.
The Office for Civil Rights in the Education Department has begun a "directed investigation" into Duke University and the Law Journal at Duke to review potential violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a release issued Monday, the department said the action was in response to recent reporting that claimed Duke had used racial factors, including race, color, "and/or national origin," to select law journal members.
In a separate move, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, informed Duke administrators in a letter that shared their concerns about the use of race as a preferential factor in "Duke's hiring, admissions, and scholarship decisions." That is primarily focused on Duke University School of Medicine and other components of Duke Health.
The secretaries challenge Duke to "Review all policies and practices at Duke Health for the illegal use of race preferences." And then the government said Duke needs to "Take immediate action to reform all of those that unlawfully take account of race or ethnicity to bestow benefits and or advantages," and offer assurances to the government that the practices have indeed been stopped.
McMahon and Kennedy charged Duke with the apparent inability to understand that the use of racial preferences in medicine amounts to "vile racism," which "carries a host of excuses and hides behind a smug superiority that such benefited races cannot compete under merit-based consideration."
The bottom line they wrote is of "life and death" importance.
The two wrote that Duke has a six-month window of opportunity to correct the racial discrimination issues or find itself targeted with "appropriate" legal actions by the government, and potentially lose government funding supporting those areas in question at the university.
The government attributed part of its actions against Duke as being based on reporting from the Washington Free Beacon in late June, when it wrote about minority applicants to the Duke Law Journal getting a secret memo that they would get higher status in the selection process if they wrote about their racial experiences.
Jim Mishler ✉
Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.