Students could earn up to 10 points for writing about being part of a minority group: documents
Students competing for spots as editors of the Duke Law Journal were told they could receive extra points for being minorities, according to a new investigation.
The university’s law journal included the information in a guide created specifically for minority student groups ahead of its editorial competition in 2024, documents uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon show.
“This is clearly illegal,” David Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason University, told the Beacon.
The news also caught the attention of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on X. The federal government recently opened an investigation into Harvard Law Review over alleged “race-based discrimination,” The College Fix reported in May.
“Not good,” Dhillon wrote of the latest report.
In the spring of 2024, the student-led journal distributed the information to first-year law students in affinity, or minority, groups, according to the report. It told them how to earn extra points in the competition by mentioning their race or gender.
According to the Beacon:
The packet, obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon, included the rubric used to evaluate the personal statements. Applicants can earn up to 10 points for explaining how their “membership in an underrepresented group” will “lend itself to … promoting diverse voices,” and an additional 3-5 points if they “hold a leadership position in an affinity group.”
To drive home the point, the packet included four examples of personal statements that had gotten students on the law review. Three of those statements referenced race in the first sentence, with one student boasting that, “[a]s an Asian-American woman and a daughter of immigrants, I am afforded with different perspectives, experiences, and privileges.” …
The packet was only distributed to the affinity groups, according to a person familiar with the matter, which meant that minority students had access to inside information about the scoring process. The journal explicitly told those groups not to share the packet with other students, according to messages reviewed by the Free Beacon, and indicated on the first page that it had been made for affinity groups.
Bernstein, who teaches constitutional law at George Mason, said the journal’s actions amount to illegal discrimination.
“They’re using the personal statement as a proxy for race,” which the U.S. Supreme Court says is unconstitutional, he told the Beacon.
Neither the journal nor the law school’s media relations office immediately returned a request for comment Tuesday morning from The College Fix.
The North Carolina conservative advocacy group Old North Patriots did respond to the news Monday on X.
“Duke Law Journal has been caught secretly providing instructions on a DEI/affirmative action to exclusionary ‘affinity groups’ (i.e. no straight white males),” the group wrote. “Sadly, this is representative of the rot and leftist capture pervasive in our educational and legal systems here in NC.”
Meanwhile, attorney Mark Weaver, an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said the reputation students traditionally gained by serving on a law review is not what it used to be.
“The notion of being on law reviews as a proxy for having a sharp legal mind is a thing of the past,” Weaver wrote on X. “Many law schools vote students onto law review like it was a student body president popularity contest. There’s little prestige left in what was once a prestigious endeavor.”
In recent months, several other law schools also have been accused of racial discrimination against white students, including the Michigan Law Review and the Harvard Law Review, as The Fix previously reported.
MORE: Feds investigate Harvard Law Review for alleged ‘race-based discrimination’
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A document provided to student minority groups offers tips for a Duke Law Journal competition; Duke Law Journal/Washington Free Beacon