A group of Yale alumni are urging the university's leadership to not broker a settlement with the Trump administration over charges of racial discrimination in the university's admission practices.gettyA group of Yale alumni have sent an open letter to the university’s top administrators and its Board of Trustees urging them to not enter into a settlement with the Trump administration over allegations that Yale has discriminated on the basis of race in its admission practices. The “Stand Up For Yale” action was prompted by a report in the New York Times last Friday that Yale had begun settlement talks with the government over a Department of Justice accusation that its medical school had given illegal, preferential treatment to Black and Hispanic applicants. The department deemed Yale’s procedures to be illegal based on its own — often contested — interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban of race-conscious admissions. The department’s review has now reportedly spread beyond the medical school and includes undergraduate and law school admissions as well.Citing three unnamed sources it said had ties to the Trump administration or to Yale, The Times reported that the university had offered a proposed settlement to the government, but its reporting did not specify the terms of that proposal. Stand Up for Yale was formed by Yale alumni in spring 2025 in reaction to the Trump administration’s campaign against higher education. A new statement on its website condemns what it calls a “baseless and politically motivated investigation into Yale’s admissions process,” and it urges university leadership “to not accept any agreement that restricts the university’s lawful ability to build a diverse academic community, compromises faculty governance, or allows politicians to dictate academic policies.”In its letter to Yale President Maurie McInnis, Provost Scott Strobel, and the Board of Trustees, Stand Up for Yale called on the university to “reject any settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that compromises Yale’s lawful commitment to building a diverse and inclusive academic community or constrains Yale’s ability to pursue lawful holistic admissions.”MORE FOR YOUThe letter argues that the investigation is politically motivated and involves a flawed interpretation of the law and Yale’s admission data, leading to false accusations of wrongdoing. “This is not civil rights enforcement,” reads the letter. “This is an effort to chill lawful efforts to build a diverse academic community, to undermine Yale’s academic independence, and to intimidate every institution watching this spectacle.”The letter goes on to point out the risks of a settlement for Yale and higher education in general. “A settlement that constrains Yale’s ability to build a diverse student body will dramatically alter the future of the university, and encourage similar retrenchment at schools across the country. A settlement would also be a slap in the face to current students and generations of alumni, casting them as evidence of wrongdoing rather than evidence that Yale is doing something right.”It also warns that negotiating a settlement “will not protect the university from further intrusions by the Trump administration into its academic freedom," before pointing out that recent history proves that appeasement does not work: "the settlements struck over the past 18 months by law firms, universities, and others did not buy peace. They merely invited further overreach".Quoting Jessica Marsden, a Stand Up For Yale organizer, the Yale Daily News reported that there had been an “excellent” initial response to the letter, “with hundreds of signatures gathered in the first few hours.” For the most part Yale has not felt the brunt of the Trump administration’s campaign targeting high-profile institutions, one of a few elite universities to be relatively unscathed by the financial and legal pressure the government has applied to several other prominent schools over the past two years. In April, it released a report with 20 recommendations for how it could help set an example for regaining public trust in the value and purpose of higher education. Several of those ideas echoed recent conservative criticisms of admissions practices, college curricula, and grade inflation, leading some to characterize the report as a gesture aimed at placating the administration.However, the federal admissions investigation represents a new level of scrutiny on Yale and raises the specter of costly litigation and the risk of additional punishment from the federal government.So what will Yale do? Try to negotiate a deal like Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Northwestern, all of which paid multi-million-dollar settlements for the government to call off the dogs? Or dig in and fight a protracted, costly legal battle with the feds like Harvard University has done?The Stand Up For Yale alums have made it clear where they want the university to land: “In moving to negotiate a settlement, Yale risks surrendering its leadership in higher education and our democracy at the moment that leadership matters most… As alumni, we are the proof of what an inclusive Yale produces, and we will not stand by while the university trades that legacy away to an administration acting in bad faith.”