According to the latest federal complaint from Young America's Foundation (YAF), the Pennsylvania college is breaking federal anti-discrimination laws and violating a decision from the Supreme Court that banned using affirmative action in admissions.
Its policy to enroll "20% domestic students of color" is the issue.
Spencer Brown, chief communications officer for YAF, says the organization is "sort of" collaborating with the Trump administration.
"These executive orders [and] key parts of the Constitution prohibit race-based discrimination, and this is a practice that's in place on far too many schools across the country, which is why we're helping to root this out," he tells AFN.
This is YAF's second complaint against Gettysburg College.
"We just keep finding more and more ways that they're in violation of both Trump executive orders and federal law and, most recently, that Supreme Court decision," Brown explains. "You can't have racial quotas because these are, as we point out in the complaint, the most basic and obvious deviation from a colorblind admissions process. In Students for Fair Admissions, the Supreme Court said that universities can't use a quota where you set a specific number of seats reserved for people from a specific or preferred ethnic group."
The first complaint, filed in March, asks the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to investigate the college and take remediate action to ensure that Gettysburg is adhering to federal law.
Brown is thankful for the individuals that President Trump has appointed, specifically Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. He says she is working her way through such complaints very quickly.
There is no specific timeline for how long it will take the Department of Education to review YAF's complaint, but he thinks the Trump administration is prioritizing probes into schools that may be violating federal law.
"We're excited to see that schools, even without having to file complaints in some cases, realize that they can no longer get away with this and are starting to take those remedial actions on their own," Brown Tells AFN.
Gettysburg College, however, reportedly continues to go "full steam ahead" with DEI initiatives.
