() Nine of the University of California’s campuses used racial preferences in determining what students they admitted, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday.

The complaint, which was filed by a group representing white and Asian students, seeks an injunction that prohibits the university system from using race in its admissions standards. The university system maintains that it only uses race for statistical purposes and that it does not factor in which students gain entry. The university said in a statement that information that is collected is not shared with application reviewers.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that universities using racial preferences in admissions is unconstitutional. The lawsuit filed this week comes amid allegations that five other universities are guilty of anti-Semitic harassment stemming from demonstrating the Israel-Hamas war.

The lawsuit claims that a 1996 California state constitution amendment that banned racial consideration led to a sharp enrollment drop among Black and Hispanic students at the University of California’s campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley.

The suit says in response, the schools responded to the constitutional amendment by reportedly enforcing discriminatory practices that prioritized race over academic performance. A spokesperson for the university system told the Wall Street Journal that since the 1996 amendment, the University of California has adjusted its admissions practices to comply with the law.

The lawsuit also claims that the nine campuses are violating the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Associated Press reported.

In a response provided to , a university spokesperson said that the system will “vigorously defend” its admissions practices. The spokesperson characterized the lawsuit as “meritless” and a distraction from providing students with a world-class education.

Students who spoke to were not surprised by the lawsuit.

“It’s been very difficult to get here,” UCLA student Dahlia Jimenez Evans told . “It’s just not because it’s hard to get in here. It’s also because of the culture.”

Jimenez Evans said that the culture is difficult to understand for outsiders.

The lawsuit was filed by Students Against Racial Discrimination, which was founded last fall. Among the group’s founders are Richard Sander, a UCLA law professor, and Tim Groseclose, a professor at George Mason University.

EdSource reported that Asian American students made up 36.3% of the University of California’s undergraduate students in fall 2024 and white students accounted for just under 20%. Black students accounted for 4.7%, while Latino students made up 26.7%.

The Wall Street Journal report, citing a 2014 study, stated that over five years, more than 2,000 admission offers to UCLA were affected by racial preferences that benefitted Black and Hispanic undergraduate students. Those decisions came at the expense of Asian-American and white students.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ordered an investigation into alleged antisemitic harassment at several schools, including Columbia University, Northwestern, the University of Minnesota, Portland State University and the University of California-Berkeley.

The lawsuit and the investigation come as Trump is weighing whether to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and give authority over education to individual states.