We are living in dangerous times.

The bigots in the White House have launched a federal Justice Department study of anti-white bias in college admissions.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration plans to redirect the civil rights division’s efforts toward investigating and suing universities over admission policies believed to discriminate against white people.

What????

Please tell us when white Americans became a marginalized group in this country. To direct staff and resources to help those who believe their white privilege is being encroached upon makes a mockery of the Civil Rights Act that protects individuals and groups of people who have suffered discrimination based on race, religion, gender, national origin and sexual orientation.

When did discrimination against white people become a pressing civil rights issue?

The answer clearly is when Donald Trump, a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic homophobe took office with support from people who feel the same way.

This latest ploy by his Justice Department, under the shaky “leadership” of U.S. Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama, is aimed at re-igniting his supporters with the message that white people in America have been dealt a serious blow in recent years by the incursion of people of color and immigrants into their sacred spaces like universities and the workplace.

Surely, this also is aimed at deflecting attention from Russiagate and the involvement of the Kremlin in our 2016 presidential election and Vladimir Putin’s continuing influence over President Trump and his administration. 

We believe this smacks of the odious handiwork of Steve Bannon, the darling of the alt-right and President Trump’s chief strategist, who embarrassingly is from Richmond and may be leading the charge on this fake claim that white students may have been discriminated against in college admissions.

Consider the facts: 

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, the percentage of white students enrolled in U.S. degree-granting institutions in fall 2014 was much higher than any other racial group. The figures show that 58.3 percent of students attending colleges and universities that year were white Americans, while 14.5 percent were African-American, 16.5 percent were Hispanic, 6.3 percent were Asian, 0.8 percent were American Indian/Alaska Natives, 0.3 percent were Pacific Islanders and 3.3 percent claimed two or more races. 

While the number of white students in universities has decreased from 2000, when 70.8 percent of students enrolled were white compared with 29.2 percent for all other racial groups combined, experts attribute the change to the increase in the U.S. population of people of color and in programs that help increase access to and affordability of higher education.

Still, studies have found that African-Americans and Latinos lose ground at every step of the educational process. They are less likely to finish high school, less likely to attend college and, once in college, less likely to graduate than their white counterparts.

U.S. Census data show that in 2013, only about 20 percent of African-Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 had college degrees compared with 40 percent of white people, 58 percent of Asians and 15 percent of Latinos.

Even at historically black colleges and universities, which sprang up post-slavery for the education of black students and continued in the decades during which white institutions refused to accept students of color, the number of non-black students continues to grow. In 2014, non-black students made up 21 percent of enrollment at all HBCUs. In fact, several HBCUs now have majority-white student populations: West Virginia State University, 53.4 percent white students and 9.9 percent African-American; Bluefield State College in West Virginia, 82 percent white students; and Gadsden State Community College in Alabama, 71 percent white students.

When looking at student enrollment at the nation’s elite, four-year institutions, the figures show fewer opportunities for African-American students. Nineteen percent of the nation’s total white student population attends such universities, compared with 9 percent of black students and 16 percent of all Latino students.

What does this all mean?

That the Trump administration’s belief that affirmative action policies are pushing white students out of colleges and universities is made up — “fake news” as they like to say.

If there is something that needs to be investigated, look into the families of the rich who often buy their way into a university, like President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

According to a 2006 book by ProPublica editor Daniel Golden, Mr. Kushner’s parents reportedly bought his admission into Harvard in the late 1990s with a $2.5 million pledge to the university. His high school teachers and counselors told Mr. Golden that Mr. Kushner didn’t have the GPA or SAT scores to get in. 

The Justice Department also may want to look at “legacy” admissions, those “affirmative action” allowances that enable less than stellar students like former President George W. Bush to get into schools like Yale. The former president was a poor performer academically and on the SATs as a student at the prestigious New England prep school Phillips Academy Andover, but he gained admittance to Yale because his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, and grandfather, former U.S. Sen. Prescott Walker Bush, had gone to Yale. Once in, George W. studied in the library wing named for his grandfather. 

Affirmative action admissions policies discriminating against white students?

Let’s get real. The Trump Justice Department already has moved to roll back voting rights and halt investigations into police abuses within minority communities. Last week, the department also sought to eliminate a worker’s right to challenge employment discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation. 

This is just the latest treacherous stunt by a desperate man willing to destroy the nation before he gets kicked out of office. The sooner he goes, the better for all of us.