Justice Department opens inquiry into University of California hiring practices

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration targeted California’s education system for the second time in two days, announcing a new Justice Department investigation into whether a plan to build a university system that more closely reflects the state’s racial and ethnic diversity violates civil rights laws against discrimination.

The investigation was made public Thursday, just 24 hours after the U.S. Education Department declared that California was breaking federal law by allowing transgender girls to compete on female sports teams. The federal government gave the state 10 days to reverse its policies or face “imminent enforcement action.”

On Thursday, Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights attorney, said in a letter to Michael V. Drake, the president of the University of California system, that she was focused on the “University of California 2030 Capacity Plan,” which she said might discriminate against some employees, job applicants and training program participants.

The government’s news release about the inquiry said that the university plan required campuses to meet quotas for race- and sex-based employment.

The 44-page plan is a three-year-old planning document aimed at expanding enrollment in the University of California system while also “reflecting California’s diversity.” It makes no specific mention of quotas, but does note that future growth of faculty and students should result in campus populations that “better reflect and tap the talent of underrepresented populations who represent the majority of Californians.”

The plan offers parameters on how to achieve that while also meeting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s goal of 70% of working-age Californians earning postsecondary degrees or certificates by 2030.

One goal includes ramping up recruitment efforts so that, by 2030, more than 40% of the University of California system’s doctoral students would come from University of California and California State University undergraduate campuses that are diverse enough that the federal government has designated them as “minority-serving institutions.” Graduates from historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges and universities would also count toward that 40% goal.

“We recognize the demand for a UC education is great,” Drake and the university system’s 10 chancellors wrote in the introduction of the plan. “And we know the university needs to tap the talent of students across our state, increasing educational attainment levels and economic opportunities for Californians who have not had the same access to our university in the past.”

A spokesperson for the University of California did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since President Donald Trump took office, California has had to contend with multiple threats from his administration to withhold federal funding.

The federal targeting of the state education systems also comes as the administration ramps up efforts to realign the political balance of higher education, which the administration views as hostile to conservatives. It has opened investigations into civil rights, foreign funding and other issues at Columbia University, Harvard University and other elite colleges.

The Justice Department said in March that it was investigating whether several California universities were complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning the consideration of race in admissions. That investigation targeted Stanford University, but also three schools in the University of California system — Berkeley, Los Angeles and Irvine.

California public colleges and universities have been prohibited by state law from using affirmative action in college admissions since 1996.