The agreement ends a lengthy probe by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights into Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center's use of race in admissions. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images education Texas Tech medical school will end use of race in admissions

Texas Tech University's medical school will stop considering race in admissions under an agreement with the Trump administration — which said a lengthy investigation sparked "concerns" about the school's use of race.

It marks the first time the administration — which has targeted affirmative action — has reached a resolution in a probe of the use of race in admissions and could foretell how it will proceed with ongoing investigations into affirmative action policies at Harvard and Yale.


The agreement ends a 14-year probe by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights into Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center's use of race in admissions.

The civil rights office said in a separate document that its investigation raised a series of concerns about the medical school's use of race, including that it "may not be narrowly tailored" as required by Supreme Court precedent and that the medical school "may not subject its race-conscious admissions policy to appropriate periodic review." The school also "could not articulate how/when race is used," the office said.

The documents were posted online by Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a non-profit that opposes affirmative action. Clegg filed the initial complaint against Texas Tech in its entirety as well as its medical school.

Clegg's complaint against Texas Tech University was tossed out in November, because the university itself stopped considering race in 2014, the department wrote in a letter to Clegg.

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The medical school, however, was still using race until earlier this year, and couldn't show that it had sufficiently "considered whether its use of race-neutral alternative measures were sufficient, standing alone, to obtain the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity," the findings letter says.

Under the agreement, which Texas Tech accepted in February, its medical school will "discontinue all consideration of an applicant's race and/or national origin" in admissions. The school is also required to revise by September all admissions and recruiting materials so they don't include race as a factor.

In a letter agreeing to the resolution, the university insisted that it believes its admission process is in compliance with standards set by the Supreme Court, but that it was nonetheless willing to sign the agreement "in an effort to resolve this matter and focus on educating future health care providers."

"It shows again that the Trump administration is serious about enforcing the civil-rights laws so that they forbid discrimination against all racial and ethnic groups, and will not turn a blind eye toward politically correct racial discrimination in the way the Obama administration did," Clegg wrote in the National Review.

The agreement leaves the door open for the medical school to again use race in admissions, but says that it must "ensure ... that it provides a reasoned, well principled explanation for its decision and identifies concrete and precise goals," among other things.

The Trump administration is separately investigating whether Harvard and Yale are discriminating against Asian-American applicants in their use of race in admissions.

The Justice Department has also backed a lawsuit targeting Harvard's use of race in admissions. And in July, the administration scrapped Obama-era guidance calling on school superintendents and colleges to consider race when trying to diversify their campuses.

The agreement was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.