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WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal district court has denied the University of California’s (UC) motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by America First Legal (AFL) and co-counsel Jonathan F. Mitchell, allowing AFL’s challenge to UC’s race-based admissions policies to proceed. The ruling propels the case into the critical discovery phase, requiring the university to defend its admissions practices on the merits.
AFL’s client, Students Against Racial Discrimination (SARD), alleges that the UC system uses unlawful racial preferences under the guise of “holistic” admissions. This violates the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), which rejects race-based admissions policies in any form.
The district court held that AFL’s complaint plausibly alleges unlawful racial discrimination in UC’s undergraduate and law-school admissions, and it further held that SARD has standing to pursue these claims.
“The University of California tried to shut this case down before any real scrutiny of its admissions practices could take place,” said Ryan Giannetti, Counsel at America First Legal. “The court rightly rejected that effort and confirmed that public universities are not above federal civil-rights laws. UC has done a poor job hiding racial discrimination behind language about ‘holistic review,’ and now it has to answer for its unlawful use of race in admissions.”
America First Legal will continue its fight to end illegal discrimination in higher education, defend students from unlawful judgments based on their immutable traits, and save the American ideals of meritocracy and equal treatment under the law.
Read the court’s full order on the motion to dismiss here.
Discover more about this case here.
Learn more about AFL’s fight to dismantle DEI here.
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