DOJ Opens Civil Rights Probe Into William and Mary Scholarship Programs
The investigation marks a continuation of the Justice Department's post-Students for Fair Admissions scrutiny of race-conscious financial aid and student benefit programs at federally funded...
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that its Civil Rights Division has opened a formal investigation into the College of William and Mary, a public university in Williamsburg, Virginia, over allegations that certain scholarship and student benefit programs favor applicants based on race or ethnicity. The announcement was reported by The Hill on August 18, 2026.
The Civil Rights Division stated it will examine whether the university's programs violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars institutions receiving federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. William and Mary receives federal funding through student financial aid disbursements and federal research grants, making it subject to Title VI requirements under 20 U.S.C. Section 1681 and related statutes.
The DOJ did not specify in its announcement which scholarship programs or student organizations are under review, nor did it disclose the total dollar value of the aid programs in question. A full accounting of federal funding flowing to William and Mary is publicly available through the USASpending.gov database, which tracks grants and contracts by recipient institution. The university had not issued a public response as of the time of the original report.
The investigation follows the Supreme Court's June 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, which held that race-conscious admissions programs at those institutions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since that ruling, the DOJ and the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights have each opened reviews at multiple universities, though a comprehensive public list of all institutions currently under investigation has not been released by either agency.
What remains unknown is which specific programs triggered the William and Mary referral, whether the probe was initiated by a complaint or through agency-directed review, and what timeline the Civil Rights Division has set for completing its findings. The DOJ's case file, if opened as a formal matter, would eventually be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests under 5 U.S.C. Section 552, which would be the primary public record avenue for obtaining those details.