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The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced an investigation into hiring practices at the University of California (UC) system, the latest instance of his feud with higher education.
The Department of Justice said on Thursday that it would investigate efforts by the UC system to increase the diversity of staff, accusing the school of employing practices that โopenly measure new hires by their race and sexโ.
The Trump administration has previously depicted diversity initiatives as a form of discrimination.
โPublic employers are bound by federal laws that prohibit racial and other employment discrimination,โ Harmeet Dhillion, the head of the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
โInstitutional directives that use race- and sex-based hiring practices expose employers to legal risk under federal law.โ
In a letter of notice to the University of California, the Justice Department noted that it had โreason to believeโ unlawful actions occurred on some of the schoolโs campuses. But it added that it had not โreached any conclusions about the subject matter of the investigationโ.
The University of California system is one of the most prominent public university systems in the US, with 10 campuses and more than 299,000 enrolled students.
The school defended its hiring practices on Thursday in response to the investigation announcement.
โThe University of California is committed to fair and lawful processes in all of our programs and activities, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws,โ a spokesperson for the UC system said in a statement. โThe University also aims to foster a campus environment where everyone is welcomed and supported.โ
President Trump has yet to weigh in on the investigation, but his administration has repeatedly clashed with US universities during his second term in the White House.
Prestigious universities, such as Harvard and Columbia, have had federal grants and contracts cancelled over allegations that they have not done enough to crack down on campus protests against Israelโs war in Gaza.
The Trump administration said those protests were anti-Semitic andย created an unsafe environment for Jews on college campuses.
Trump and his allies have also portrayed universities as hotbeds of left-wing ideas and political dissent. In the case of Harvard University, the Trump administration sent a letter on April 11 with a list of demands for changes.
One required Harvard to submit to an external audit of its enrollment and staff, to evaluate โviewpoint diversityโ with the aim of implementing โreformsโ to its admissions and hiring practices. The external party, the letter noted, would have to โsatisfy the federal governmentโ.
Harvard has resisted those demands, citing the need to protect academic freedom. The Trump administration has since threatened its tax-exempt status and sought to restrict its ability to enrol foreign students.
In response, Harvard has filed lawsuits to restore its federal funding and block the Trump administrationโs attempts to bar foreign students.
On Thursday, the school also unveiled an agreement with the University of Toronto that would allow foreign students to continue their Harvard studies in Canada if Trumpโs visa restrictions affected their ability to attend classes.
Critics have described Trumpโs actions as an effort to pressure schools into greater conformity with the political views and priorities of the White House.
One particular flashpoint for the Trump administration has been efforts to promote diversity in university hiring and enrolment.
Proponents say those initiatives help counter the legacy of discrimination in higher education, but the Trump administration has said they are a form of discrimination themselves.
In a news conference on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not weigh in on the specifics of the UC investigation, but reaffirmed Trumpโs commitment to dismantling diversity initiatives.
โItโs the position of this president that we want to restore a merit-based society and culture in the United States of America where people are not hired, nor are they promoted, based on the colour of their skin or their gender,โ she said.
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order ending โdiversity, equity and inclusionโ (DEI) programming in the federal government. He called those programmes a source of โimmense public waste and shameful discriminationโ.
But critics have argued that Trumpโs efforts have served as their own form of discrimination, violating the constitutional rights of those he disagrees with.
The government, for instance, has sought to deport several foreign students who took part in pro-Palestine activities on college campuses, raising free speech questions.
They include a Turkish graduate student named Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested by immigration agents for co-authoring an article in the school newspaper calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
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