What Trump Just Doesn’t Get About America’s Long, Sordid History of Racism in Higher Education

The battle over race in America’s universities has entered another explosive chapter, with the Trump administration turning its attention to admissions policies at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions.

The latest confrontation centers on the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, which the Trump administration has accused of discriminating against white and Asian applicants by favoring Black applicants. Berkeley Law strongly disputes the allegation and says it has complied with federal and state law.

But critics of the administration argue that the debate cannot be separated from the much longer history of racial exclusion in American higher education.

For generations, universities that are now celebrated as elite institutions operated in an environment where race, religion and social class could determine who was considered worthy of admission.

Jewish applicants, for example, faced explicit or informal restrictions at several elite universities during the early 20th century. Institutions developed admissions practices that could be used to limit Jewish enrollment, while Black Americans and other minority groups faced even more profound barriers to higher education.

That history is at the heart of the argument now confronting America.

Supporters of the Trump administration say universities should never discriminate on the basis of race, regardless of whether the intended goal is greater diversity. The administration has made eliminating what it considers race-based preferences a major higher-education priority, arguing that applicants should be judged without racial preferences.

Opponents counter that simply declaring race irrelevant does not erase the consequences of decades of exclusion.

They argue that today’s debate is taking place on a playing field shaped by yesterday’s discrimination. From segregated schools to exclusionary admissions practices, racial inequality was not merely an unintended consequence of American education—it was sometimes built directly into the system.

The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina already dramatically changed the legal landscape. The Trump administration has since intensified investigations into universities it believes may still be using race improperly in admissions.

The danger, critics warn, is that the country could end up having a debate about racial fairness without honestly confronting how American higher education became unequal in the first place.

That does not mean every diversity program is automatically fair, or that allegations of discrimination should be ignored. If a university unlawfully favors one racial group over another, that deserves scrutiny.

But history matters.

America’s universities did not begin from a position of racial neutrality. They evolved through periods when race and religion were openly used to determine who belonged in the nation’s most powerful educational institutions.

And that is why today’s fight is about far more than admissions statistics.

It is ultimately a question about what equality means in a country still wrestling with the consequences of its past—and whether eliminating race-conscious policies alone is enough to create a truly equal system.

The Trump administration may believe it is closing one chapter of racial discrimination in higher education.

Its critics fear it could be opening another.