Brett Samuels, The Hill, September 26, 2018

The Department of Justice and the Department of Education have launched an investigation focused on whether Yale University illegally discriminates against Asian-American applicants in its admissions process, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The newspaper reported that the investigation stems from a 2016 complaint filed by the Asian American Coalition for Education and other Asian-American organizations, which claimed that Yale, Brown University and Dartmouth specifically treated Asian-American applicants differently based on race.

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the group behind the complaint on Wednesday that it is joining the probe.

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[Yale President Peter] Salovey said the university seeks to create a diverse student body through its admissions process and looks beyond academic criteria when determining which students are accepted.

He noted that the number of Asian-American students who arrive as freshmen each year has grown from 14 percent in the class of 2007 to 21.7 percent in the class of 2022.

“The creation of a diverse academic community has not come at the expense of applications of any racial or ethnic background,” Salovey said.

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The Department of Justice last month backed a group of Asian-American students suing Harvard for alleged discrimination in the admissions process.

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