Trump administration to investigate University of California’s hiring practices

The U S Department of Justice is scrutinizing diversity hiring practices at the University of California the latest of multiple federal probes into the university system and others in California since President Donald Trump took office On Thursday the department s Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon notified UC President Michael Drake it is examining workable violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of which protects employees and job applicants from discrimination based on race religion sex and national origin The new probe takes aim at the UC Quota Plan which aims to swell the numbers of UC graduates and promote racial diversity in novice bodies Populace employers are bound by federal laws that prohibit racial and other employment discrimination Dhillon disclosed in a message Institutional directives that use race- and sex-based hiring practices expose employers to legal danger under federal law Dhillon contended in the letter to Drake that we have reason to believe the UC Plan may include sex- and race-based hiring quotas for employees and potentially runs afoul of federal law But she also noted that we have not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of the probe and that we intend to consider all relevant information in the probe Rachel Zaentz a spokesperson for the UC Office of the President announced the university system will work in good faith with the Department of Justice as it conducts its scrutiny The University of California is committed to fair and lawful processes in all of our programs and initiatives consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws Zaentz noted The University also aims to foster a campus surroundings where everyone is welcomed and supported The UC Plan states in part that California is a majority-minority state but underrepresented groups i e Black Latinx Asian Pacific Islander Indigenous are less likely to graduate from college and have the economic benefits associated with a college degree the pandemic further exacerbated these historic inequities It goes on to say that UC will seize its generational opportunity to become a Hispanic-serving and minority-serving system and that UC had a a generational opportunity to grow and diversify the faculty In the UC system adopted a agenda message that pledged to foster a working and learning circumstances that is diverse equitable and inclusive but also commented it shall not in any of these processes use race ethnicity or gender quotas that must be achieved or caps that cannot be exceeded UC s guidelines comment against race quotas came the same year that California voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed Proposition The initiative banned the establishment from giving preferential medication in population employment teaching and contracting based on race sex ethnicity or national origin The Trump administration has criticized and cracked down on diversity equity and inclusion-oriented hiring practices This is the latest federal probe into the UC system and individual campuses In March the Department of Justice released an examination of four California universities including UC Berkeley and Stanford to determine their compliance with a landmark Supreme Court decision two years ago that outlawed race-based affirmative action in college admissions Earlier that month the department began researching the University of California over states the university system allowed an antisemitic hostile work context on its campuses And in April the Trump administration subpoenaed personal information of hundreds of UC Berkeley professors who signed petitions during escalating Israel-Hamas campus protests Dhillon is a longtime Trump acolyte and firebrand Bay Area attorney who is one of California s most of prominent Republicans In her post leading the Civil Rights Division she leads the Justice Department s enforcement of civil and constitutional rights Trump praised her willingness to challenge woke policies when announcing her nomination in December