Maybe Princeton wanted to get caught. How else to explain the open letter that the university’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, published earlier this month? The epistle claims that “racism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton” and that “racist assumptions” are “embedded in structures of the University itself.” This from a Princeton president who is also a lawyer. What in the world could he have been thinking?

Now, in any event, the Education Department in Washington has just sent a letter alerting Princeton that the Tigers are under investigation for civil rights violations. In light of Princeton’s “admitted racism,” the government says it “is concerned” that assurances of nondiscrimination and equal opportunity the university has made since at least 2013 “may have been false.” The Feds worry that Princeton “knew, or should have known,” its assurances were false.

Plus, the money. Mr. Eisgruber’s letter, the government suggests, raises concerns that Princeton has been receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer funds in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So the government may seek to claw back funds. It warns that Secretary DeVos could seek to fine Princeton for any “substantial misrepresentations about the nature of its educational programs.” It calls Mr. Eisgrugber’s admissions “serious, even shocking.”

Princeton quickly doubled down on President Eisgruber’s open letter. It is brushing off as “unfortunate” that the Education Department “appears to believe that grappling honestly with the nation’s history and the current effects of systemic racism runs afoul of existing law.” It insists that it operates within the law. It fails, though, to mention the disparity between Mr. Eisgruber’s open letter and the assurances Princton offered in return for federal money.

That may happen in a more formal response, which the university says it will make “in due course.” The Feds are giving it a matter of weeks. Already, though, the Democratic press is starting to spin the story. “Princeton Admitted Past Racism,” the Times’ headline says. “Now It Is Under Investigation.” In fact, what seems to have alarmed the Feds is not “past” racism but the disclosure that racism “persists” and racist assumptions “remain embedded” at Princeton.

Once that kind of confession is made, how could the Education Department fail to begin an investigation? Particularly with taxpayers being forced to dole out a fortune to the school. America is already in court against Harvard University, which is being sued for discriminating, in its admissions policies, against Asians. Over the summer, the Justice Department accused Yale of discriminating against Asian and white students.

We gather that Princeton’s predicament has already caught the attention of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that launched the lawsuit against Harvard. Harvard has won in the lower court, and, a hearing Wednesday suggests, could win again before the riders of the First United States Appeals Circuit — though the news out of the hearing was the forcefulness with which the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department sided with Students for Fair Admissions.

The stakes are enormous. We have a good bit of sympathy for all these great universities. There is a streak to us that reckons the best part of wisdom is for the government and courts just to leave them alone. Yet some of the evidence turned up in, say, the fight against Harvard is startling. And even as the well-endowed universities have come to rely more and more on federal grants, they have sold some of their independence.

Meantime, the purity now being demanded by our cancel culture is frightening to millions of decent Americans. This is a climate in which Mr. Eisgruber’s stumble will leave many with a sense of schadenfreude. Princeton won’t even defend the most recent of its graduates* to be elected president of America. It makes us wonder whether it recognizes that a federal case could be the best way to sort all this out.

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* JFK was enrolled briefly at Princeton but left for illness and resumed his education at Harvard.