"The Princeton legal department might have advised its president against making such a public declaration."

Princeton has a legal department, but it doesn't have a law school. Maybe it should.

If "systemic racism" is actionable, an admission is not the only possible means of proof. How is Princeton's behavior materially different from that of many other private institutions? Lawyers love to treat changes in behavior as evidence of actionable wrong before the change. NYC has decided to publish complaints against police. Is the change evidence of systemic racism pre-change? The settlement in the Breonna Taylor case included private promises of changes in public policy.

Perhaps Mr. Eisgruber has pointed the way to reparations by litigation. A "conservative" Supreme Court may be the only thing preventing a national bankruptcy. Then there are are all those Blue states where the action will be in the state courts.

Of, course, we are talking about the Trump administration, so one shouldn't rule out a more cynical view. Maybe this is DeVos's way of saying "STFU" to institutions that offer to bring their own matches to the SJW stake. If this is what happens to universities that admit to racism, we can expect to see fewer universities do so.