“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm. On Oct. 1, the Justice Department sued the University of Delaware and its board of trustees over a tuition policy. According to the complaint, an American citizen from out of state pays about $42,470 a year. A qualifying student who is in the country illegally pays $15,740, the Delaware resident rate.

Federal law bars that arrangement, DOJ argues, and Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate calls it “a simple matter of federal law.” Congress wrote the rule in 1996: a state can’t give unlawfully present people residency-based college benefits unless citizens get the same benefits regardless of where they live. Delaware, DOJ alleges, skipped the reading assignment.