Sen. Vance Asks FTC to Probe Schools' Admissions Policies

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, wants the Federal Trade Commission to investigate if universities and colleges are adhering to the Supreme Court's ruling in June that ended race-based admissions programs, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

Schools "may be tempted to jointly adopt new and experimental policies, such as preferences for low-income students, assured in the knowledge that their competitors will not do otherwise," Vance wrote in a letter to FTC chair Lina Kahn on Thursday.

"For example, it would raise alarms for federal authorities if other elite schools were to copy Columbia Law School's recent (and now rescinded) effort to have applicants submit a video statement, thus allowing admissions officers to observe their race."

The Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, effectively prohibiting affirmative action policies long used to raise the number of Black, Hispanic, and other minority students on American campuses.

In a blockbuster decision that will force many colleges and universities to overhaul their admissions policies, the justices ruled that affirmative action admissions programs that consider an applicant's race in ways like Harvard and UNC violated the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law.

Vance, who last month sent a letter to Ivy League schools expressing concern about what he called their "openly defiant and potentially unlawful reaction to the Supreme Court's landmark decision," in his letter to the FTC suggested that the elite schools may already be doing so.

Vance said he received replies about their compliance with the ruling, all of which bore an "uncanny similarity" in "substance and structure."

"It is hard to believe that the schools responding to my letter could achieve such remarkable parallels in the absence of coordination or collusion," Vance told Kahn. "It is nearly impossible to believe that they would do so using the same structure, vocabulary, tone, and brevity."

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