Justice Department Accuses Yale and UCLA Medical Schools of Race-Based Admissions

The Justice Department on Thursday accused the Yale School of Medicine of violating anti-discrimination laws through its admissions policies. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the school relied on racial proxies to determine the ethnicity of applicants after the 2023 Supreme Court decision that overturned race-conscious admissions policies.

The department issued similar findings last week for the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. In March it opened investigations into admissions policies for medical schools at Stanford, Ohio State and the University of California, San Diego.

In February the department sued Harvard University seeking more detailed admissions data.

Yale’s documents show that its leadership intentionally selected applicants based on their race, according to the Justice Department. The department stated that the school studied how to use racial proxies to circumvent the Supreme Court’s prohibition on using race to select students.

Admissions data demonstrate that Black and Hispanic students have a much higher chance of admission to Yale than White or Asian students with the same test scores. The median MCAT score for white and Asian admissions is at the 100th percentile while scores for Black and Hispanic students are lower.

The department said Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted with consistently lower academic qualifications than their White and Asian counterparts. The pattern worsened over the three most recent admissions classes following the Supreme Court ruling.

The Justice Department seeks to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with Yale to bring its admissions practices into legal compliance.

The Justice Department found that UCLA’s leadership intentionally selected applicants based on their race. Documents reviewed by the department show the school adheres to the view that patients receive the best care when treated by a doctor of the same race.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon stated that UCLA’s admissions process has been focused on racial demographics at the expense of merit and excellence. The department said this approach allows racial politics to distract from training qualified doctors.

Jonathan Turley, who has written on the issue, said university administrators prepared to use essays and interviews as indirect ways to achieve racial identifications after the Supreme Court decision. He stated that these methods allow the removal of high-scoring students while elevating those with lower scores.

The Justice Department continues enforcement actions and negotiations with Harvard University over its admissions policies.