The Justice Department was attacked as racist due to a false New York Times story claiming the DOJ was working to protect white students from discrimination.
The Times story inferred that an internal personnel posting seeking volunteers to investigate “possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions” was meant to look at policies discriminating “against white applicants.”
The Daily Caller first reported that a DOJ source said this Times article “appears to assume it deals with white students without evidence.” DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores later put out a statement confirming this.
“Press reports regarding the personnel posting in the Civil Rights Division have been inaccurate. The posting sought volunteers to investigate one administrative complaint filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American associations in May 2015 that the prior Administration left unresolved,” Flores wrote. “The complaint alleges racial discrimination against Asian Americans in a university’s admissions policy and practices.”
The May 2015 complaint centered around Asian-Americans claiming they got passed over for worse students due to quotas at Ivy League schools.
“This Department of Justice has not received or issued any directive, memorandum, initiative, or policy related to university admissions in general,” Flores continued. “The Department of Justice is committed to protecting all Americans from all forms of illegal race-based discrimination.”
The incorrect Times story, however, let off a firestorm of hate directed towards the Trump administration. The Times story quoted a key liberal activist lawyer who said, “This is deeply disturbing.”
While the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article claiming, “What do blacks have to lose under Trump? College, apparently.”
Congressional Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond put out a statement in which he said, “Instead of standing up for himself to a president who called him ‘very weak’ and ‘beleaguered,’ Attorney General Sessions has chosen to pick on minority students who are in pursuit of a college education, opportunity and the American Dream.”
Richmond’s office has not responded to an inquiry about whether he will apologize to Sessions for his attack over a false article.