On Tuesday, the Department of Justice released an internal memo that instructed the department to look into whether universities are discriminating against white candidates.

While the memo does not specifically mention white students, it pointed to programs that lead to “intentional race-based discrimination,” a clear reference to the policy of affirmative action, which President John F. Kennedy introduced in the 1960s to promote equality in education.

The move is popular among Trump’s conservative base. Roger Clegg, president of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity, hailed the project as something that has been long overdue:

The civil rights laws were deliberately written to protect everyone from discrimination, and it is frequently the case that not only are whites discriminated against now, but frequently Asian-Americans are as well.

In a way Trump and his team are right: there is a serious discriminatory problem in college admissions. However, the problem has less to do with race and more to do with socioeconomic status. Children whose parents rank toward the top of the income bracket are overly represented at top colleges in the U.S., compared to students whose parents come from the bottom tier.

A study by The Upshot earlier this year shows that since 2002, the share of students from the top one percent (in terms of household income) attending elite universities has steadily increased. But the share of students from the bottom 40th percentile and below has slightly decreased. At 38 colleges in America, including five Ivy League schools, the top one percent had more representation than students from the bottom 60 percent.

Why is this the case when some of the best schools in the country provide full tuition to students who are in the lowest socioeconomic class? The answer is simple: legacy, connections, and resources. Some students are given priority admission to top schools because of family ties, while largely ignoring the merit of their applications.

Take for instance the story of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law. Kushner attended Frisch’s, a well known New Jersey prep school. One college prep counselor said that Jared was “certainly not anywhere near the top of his class.”

However, Daniel Golden, author of “The Price of Admission,” claims Kushner’s father donated $2.5 million right around the time his son applied to Harvard. Unsurprisingly, Kushner was accepted. But according to Golden, Kushner would not have been accepted on his own merits

If the Justice Department truly wants to fight against discrimination, it should focus on preventing those with the financial means from buying their way into a top school.

This is where race plays a factor, as minority groups tend to be the ones who are historically financially disadvantaged in the U.S. The median household income for whites is approximately $30,000 dollars more than black and Hispanic families, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center study.

Universities should accept more students whose household income is in the bottom percentile, and prevent those who are in the from the top percentile from using their financial resources to usurp those who do not have the same financial means.

James Levinson

James Levinson is an Editorial intern at Law Street Media and a native of the greater New York City Region. He is currently a rising junior at George Washington University where he is pursuing a B.A in Political Communications and Economics. Contact James at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Irony of the Justice Department’s Affirmative Action Probe appeared first on Law Street.

For many young people, joining the ranks of our nation’s exclusive richest 1 percent feels unreachable, especially when these earners average an annual income of $717,000 a year. According to Fusion, millennials are more aware of income inequality due to a much larger wealth disparity among our own ranks than in previous generations, making earning top incomes seem even further away than ever before.

Fusion created a wealth gap calculator that lets you enter your annual income to see how you rank against other millennials. They found that you need to take home an income of about $106,500 a year to be considered in the top percentile for millennials, placing 720,000 millennials in this bracket. According to Fusion, these top professionals, ranging in ages between 18 and 34, earn about double the combined income of the bottom 20 percent. This may be due to a huge population of millennials–28 million–who aren’t enrolled in school and are making less than 10,000 a year, skewing results. According to Fusion:

In 2000, the median net worth for the top 20 percent of young adult households was 4x the net worth of the other four quintiles combined. In 2011—the most recent year for which data is available—that gap had grown to 8x.

However, our generation’s highest earners do have something in common with older generations–they’re mostly male and white. According to data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, only nine percent are black, while seven percent are Hispanic. Women only make up 28 percent.

However in order to be considered in the top 1 percent of all Americans, $106k a year isn’t necessarily going to cut it. Below is an infographic created by the Economic Policy Institute illustrating each state’s qualifying income to be considered one of the elite earners.

What you need to make to be in your state’s top 1%. http://t.co/3rAq1hb3qd pic.twitter.com/EwMGF7Oqrj

— Economic Policy Inst (@EconomicPolicy) January 30, 2015

While experts disagree on what is actually driving the wage disparity among our peers, one thing is certain–you probably do need a college education in order to reach our highest ranks. Fusion reports:

Millennials with bachelor’s degrees have the greatest share of their generation’s One Percent, at 39 percent, compared with just 7 percent for individuals who only graduated high school and 10 percent for college dropouts.

That means that making college more affordable may be an essential first step in helping to lower the current wealth gap in America. If we continue with how things currently are, individuals attending college will continue to climb up the “wealth ladder” passing over lesser educated individuals and sustaining our unfortunate status quo. Inequality appears to be business as usual, for now at least.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Millennial Incomes: Wealth Gap Transcends Generations appeared first on Law Street.