The DOJ launched a compliance review into one of Virginia's most prestigious public universities over scholarships and student programs that allegedly favor applicants by race, and the school now faces a September deadline to turn over records or risk losing federal funding.
The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division on Monday announced it had opened an investigation into the College of William & Mary, a public research institution in Virginia, to determine whether several scholarship and mentorship programs violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That federal law bars discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal financial assistance.
The DOJ sent a formal notice letter to the university identifying at least five programs it considers suspect. William & Mary now has until September 8 to produce documents and information requested by federal investigators. If the school does not cooperate voluntarily, the Justice Department warned it may pursue formal proceedings, including cutting off federal money entirely.
The DOJ's notice letter laid out specific concerns about how William & Mary structures aid and opportunities across multiple departments. The programs span undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, doctoral mentorship, and law school tuition awards.
At the undergraduate level, the department flagged the "W&M Scholars" program for first-year students, which covers at least the full cost of in-state tuition and fees. Fox News Digital reported that applicants with an "interest in diverse people and perspectives" receive "top consideration" for the award.
In the graduate School of Education, the DOJ identified the Martha L. Muguira Fellowship, a need-based award that gives a "preference" to Hispanic or Latino women with financial need. The same school runs the Holmes Scholars program at the doctoral level, which provides "future education leaders of color" with mentorship, access to job fairs and position announcements, national professional development, policy and advocacy training, and opportunities to present research.
William & Mary's law school drew attention for two separate programs. The Lemon Legal Scholars Program offers up to five full scholarships covering tuition and fees that, in the DOJ's description, "appear to be exclusively for HBCU graduates." The university's own website states the law school "will award at least five full scholarships" to graduates of historically Black colleges and universities admitted to its J.D. program. A second award, the "Reaching Back Scholarship," is need-based but carries a "preference" for HBCU graduates or applicants "who contribute to the diversity" of the law school.
Taken together, the programs span nearly every level of the university, from incoming freshmen to doctoral candidates to law students, and each one, in the DOJ's telling, steers money or access based at least partly on race or ethnicity. The pattern is what prompted federal action.
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, framed the investigation in blunt constitutional terms. She said in a statement:
"Awarding scholarships or offering coveted opportunities to students based on the color of their skin is illegal and offends the guarantees of our color-blind Constitution."
Dhillon added that the department intends to examine the full scope of how William & Mary distributes aid:
"We will find out if scholarships or other student benefits at William & Mary favor applicants of certain races. The Department will not turn a blind eye to race-based preferences, however they are packaged or portrayed by universities."
That last line, "however they are packaged or portrayed", signals the DOJ's awareness that universities often dress up racial preferences in neutral-sounding language. A scholarship that formally asks about an applicant's "interest in diverse people and perspectives" may function as a racial screen even if it never names a specific race on the application form. The compliance review will test whether William & Mary's programs cross that line.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division did note that it "had not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of the investigation." The probe is a compliance review, not a final finding. But the specificity of the notice letter, naming five programs, quoting eligibility language, and setting a hard document deadline, suggests federal investigators already know what they are looking for.
The university's public response was brief. William & Mary said it is "committed to nondiscriminatory learning environments across our campus and complying with all state and federal laws." The statement did not address any of the five programs by name, did not dispute the DOJ's characterization of their eligibility criteria, and did not say whether the school plans to modify or defend the programs.
Some of the flagged programs were established to address the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination at the institution. That history is real. But Title VI does not contain an exception for good intentions or historical grievance. The law prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs, full stop. The Supreme Court's 2023 ruling striking down race-conscious college admissions reinforced that principle, and the Trump administration's DOJ has moved aggressively to apply it beyond admissions offices and into scholarship programs, fellowships, and campus benefits.
The William & Mary investigation is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to hold educational institutions accountable on civil rights grounds. The DOJ has previously opened a probe into Harvard's financial aid practices over alleged discrimination against American students. It also launched a civil rights investigation into Florida State University over dozens of scholarships that raised similar concerns about race-based criteria.
Federal investigators have also pursued cases beyond admissions and financial aid. The DOJ sued UCLA over conditions during anti-Israel campus encampments, alleging the university failed to protect Jewish students. The common thread across these actions is a willingness to use federal civil rights law as a tool of enforcement rather than a rubber stamp for university self-governance.
The compliance review's immediate consequence is a paper trail. William & Mary must hand over internal documents and information by September 8, records that will likely reveal how each flagged program selects recipients, what demographic data the university collects from applicants, and whether race or ethnicity plays a formal or informal role in award decisions.
If the school cooperates and the DOJ finds violations, the department said it prefers to resolve the matter through "informal voluntary means." That could mean restructuring or eliminating the programs in question. If William & Mary resists or the two sides cannot agree, the DOJ warned it may initiate formal proceedings that could end in the termination of federal financial assistance, a penalty that would ripple across every department, lab, and financial aid office on campus.
The stakes are not hypothetical. Courts and state governments have already begun acting on similar questions. A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling struck down a race-based college scholarship program as unconstitutional, reinforcing the legal trend against racial preferences in higher education funding.
Universities across the country are watching. For years, many institutions treated race-conscious scholarships as untouchable, justified by diversity goals and institutional history. The DOJ's compliance review at William & Mary sends a different message: federal money comes with federal rules, and those rules apply to every program, not just the ones that generate headlines.
The broader enforcement posture extends well beyond campus. The DOJ's Civil Rights Division under the Trump administration has also pursued high-profile fraud cases and accountability actions against organizations that had long operated with minimal federal oversight. The pattern is consistent: institutions that receive public money or public trust face scrutiny they once avoided.
Separately, the DOJ's expanded civil rights enforcement has drawn attention to groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose own legal troubles have raised questions about institutional accountability in the nonprofit sector. The willingness to investigate powerful, well-connected organizations, whether universities or advocacy groups, marks a shift from the deference that characterized prior administrations.
William & Mary markets itself as one of the oldest and most respected public universities in the country. Its history stretches back to 1693. But age and prestige do not exempt an institution from the law. If the DOJ's review confirms that these five programs award money, mentorship, and professional access based on an applicant's race or ethnicity, the university will face a choice: change or lose federal funding.
Dhillon's framing, that the Constitution is "color-blind", is not a new legal theory. It is the plain reading of Title VI, reinforced by the Supreme Court. What is new is a Justice Department willing to enforce it at schools that assumed the rules did not apply to them.
For years, the debate over race-based preferences in higher education has been fought in admissions offices and courtrooms. The William & Mary probe moves it into scholarship offices, fellowship committees, and mentorship pipelines, places where racial preferences often operate quietly, shielded by vague eligibility language and institutional inertia.
And that, in the end, is the broader accountability question facing American institutions: whether rules that apply to everyone actually apply to everyone, or only to those without the right connections and the right vocabulary to avoid them.
Equal treatment under the law should not depend on a university's zip code or its public-relations budget. If William & Mary's programs cannot survive a straightforward civil rights review, that tells you everything about who those programs were really designed to serve.
