NEW: 44 of the nation’s largest law firms were hit with a discrimination complaint on Monday alleging that they use an outside staffing agency to hire interns based on race.

These are some of the same firms that pledged to end DEI hiring as part of their deals with Trump.🧵 The complaint, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, targets Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), a nonprofit that places minority students at elite firms the summer before their first year of law school.

EXCLUSIVE: The EEOC is investigating Harvard's faculty hiring practices after the school boasted online that it had increased the number of ‘women, non-binary, and/or people of color' on faculty—and decreased the number of white men.

The probe is based on Harvard's own data.🧵
The EEOC is sixth federal agency to launch a probe of Harvard. The investigation is based on materials from the school's website—many of them now deleted—in which Harvard bragged about increasing the number of "women, non-binary, and/or people of color" on faculty.

NEW: UCLA medical school was sued today for discriminating against whites and Asians in admissions.

The lawsuit is based on my reporting from last year. It was filed by Students for Fair Admissions—the same group that got affirmative action outlawed nationwide.🧵

https://twitter.com/aaronsibarium/status/1793657774767022569

SFFA scored a landmark victory against Harvard University in 2023 when the Supreme Court ruled that racial preferences were unconstitutional. Now the group’s president, Edward Blum, is framing the UCLA lawsuit as a sequel to the Harvard case.

NEW: In March, the Trump administration said it would investigate whether UCLA medical school's admissions office discriminates based on race.

Two weeks later, the med school promised to do just that, telling students in writing that it would pick "BIPOC" admissions officers.🧵 On April 8, the school circulated a memo that outlined "guiding principles for student representation on the admissions committee," which includes 3rd and 4th year students. Those guidelines require the committee to consider race when picking student admissions officers.

NEW: The Trump administration said Monday it would investigate the Harvard Law Review for race discrimination.

72 hours later, the journal asked applicants to disclose their race in their personal statements, so that it could select editors from "diverse … backgrounds."🧵 The journal sent an email to all first-year law students that included a memo that encouraged applicants to "convey aspects of their identity," including their race, through an optional "holistic review" statement.

NEW: As the Trump administration investigates the Harvard Law Review over the journal’s race-based policies, the law review itself will be conducting its own investigation—not into the documents showing patent discrimination, but into who leaked those documents to yours truly.🧵 The journal’s top editors asked members of the law review last week to come forward with any information that might help identify the leaker, writing, "The information contained in the article should not have been shared."

EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration just launched multiple probes of Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review, citing allegations that the flagship law journal discriminates based on race.

The Education Department and HHS will each conduct separate investigations.🧵 The probes come after the Free Beacon published extensive evidence of race discrimination at the nation’s top law review, both in the selection of articles and editors.

https://x.com/aaronsibarium/status/1915821015919202338?s=46&t=VJEPzkZKAIIk5F-cuxiEZQ

NEW: The Harvard Law Review has made DEI the "first priority" of its admissions process. It routinely kills or advances pieces based on the author's race. It even vets articles for racially diverse citations.

And guess what? Editors at the top journal put all this in writing.🧵

We obtained more than four years of documents from the law review, including article evaluations, training materials, and data on the race and gender of journal authors. They reveal a pattern of pervasive race discrimination that could plunge Harvard into even deeper crisis.

NEW: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab laid off 900 workers due to budget cuts. But it refuses to fire its top DEI officer, Neela Rajendra, who has said that "extreme deadlines" are an obstacle to "inclusion."

The lab changed her title but kept many of her duties the same.🧵 Rajendra said on a 2022 podcast that that "some people might be left behind" by the "super fast pace" of tight deadlines. That comment came two years before a pair of astronauts were stranded on the International Space Station for nine months due to a faulty propulsion system.

NEW: Trump's Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC) sent letters to 20 white shoe law firms today requesting information about their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, arguing that many of the firms' practices appear to violate civil rights law.🧵 The letters ask the firms to provide detailed information about their diversity fellowship programs—some of which explicitly limit eligibility based on race—and to explain how the firms achieved rapid changes in their demographic makeup without recourse to race discrimination.

NEW: A gender studies professor who says "white empiricism" undermines Einstein’s theory of relativity sits on a top advisory panel at the Energy Department.

Meet Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who claims string theory "failed to succeed" because the field has too many white men.🧵 Prescod-Weinstein, a professor of physics and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire, was appointed to the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) under the Biden administration in 2024.

SCOOP: Illinois runs a scholarship program for graduate students that explicitly excludes white applicants, a move lawyers say is unconstitutional and could jeopardize the federal funding of more than two dozen participating universities, including Northwestern and UChicago.🧵 The program, Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois (DFI), was established by state law in 2004 and provides financial aid to "members of traditionally underrepresented minority groups" pursuing masters or doctoral degrees.

NEW: The American Sociological Association is suing to block the Trump administration's Dear Colleague letter on DEI.

But guess what? ASA has a fellowship that openly discriminates against white applicants—something that would have been illegal even without the new guidance.🧵 With help from Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit whose board is chaired by disgraced Dem superlawyer Marc Elias, ASA sued to block the enforcement of the Dear Colleague letter, which argues a wide range of DEI initiatives—not just overt racial preferences—violate Title VI.

NEW: Scores of Iowa public school districts now have affirmative action plans that encourage race-based hiring and other diversity initiatives, potentially imperiling their federal funding under new guidance issued by the Trump administration.🧵


The plans, which are required by state law, include hiring goals for minority teachers, courses on "equity in mathematics," and bonuses for teachers who specialize in "culturally responsive leadership."

NEW: After Trump’s inauguration, the University of Michigan School of Nursing axed all its DEI programs.

Or so it appeared—until we dug deeper.

Turns out the school just renamed its DEI office the office of “community culture.” And all its DEI programs are still in effect.🧵
Amid Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive orders, a "diversity" tab with links to DEI resources was removed from the school’s homepage. And pages with "DEI" in the title were renamed and purged of the offending adjective, according to web archives we reviewed.

SCOOP: The University of Illinois was sued today over a slew of race-based hiring programs that discriminate against white scholars.

The lawsuit shows how faculty hiring—and the paper trail it generates—could be an easy way for the Trump administration to go after DEI.🧵 The plaintiff, Stephen Kleinschmit, a former professor of public administration and data science at the University of Illinois Chicago, alleges that he was fired for raising concerns about the programs.

SCOOP: The Department of Education today canceled $15 million in federal grants that were used to fund diversity programs at three universities, the latest move in the Trump administration's efforts to defund DEI.

The grants were spent on DEI trainings and an “equity” center.🧵 The universities—California State University, Los Angeles; Virginia Commonwealth University; and the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota—had received a series of grants for their education schools under the Biden administration.

SCOOP: Brown University Medical School now gives "diversity, equity, and inclusion" more weight than "excellent clinical skills" in its promotion criteria for faculty."

The criteria say DEI is a "major criterion." Clinical skills, by contrast, are only a "minor criterion."🧵 Doctors who reviewed the criteria were alarmed, saying they reflect an unusually frank admission that merit is taking a back seat to DEI.

"This is as stark as it gets," said Bob Cirincione, an orthopedic surgeon in Hagerstown, Maryland.

NEW: Many states and cities now have bias reporting systems for citizens to report each other for "hate speech."

Oregon's hotline solicits reports of "offensive jokes" and even logged the Israeli flag as a bias incident when I reported a display of one.

Wokeness is not dead.🧵 In the name of collecting "data" on so-called "bias incidents," at least a dozen Democratic jurisdictions, including eight states, have set up hotlines and portals that let people report their fellow citizens for protected speech. freebeacon.com/policy/inside-…

EXCLUSIVE: Amy Wax has sued the University of Pennsylvania for race discrimination, arguing that Penn punishes speech that offends racial minorities but not speech that offends Jews.

Here is a table from the complaint, which was filed in federal court this morning.🧵 The complaint, obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon, advances a novel legal theory that could have major implications for universities as they brace for the incoming Trump administration.

NEW: Amy Wax told UPenn last week that she will sue the university for race discrimination if it does not drop the sanctions against her.

She's arguing that by punishing speech that offends racial minorities—but not speech that offends Jews—Penn violated civil rights law.🧵 Penn has until December 19 to "conclusively disavow" the penalties. "Should you fail to do so," her attorney wrote in a letter to Penn, "Professor Wax will file suit against the University."