Justice Department Finds UC Davis Medical School Violated 2023 Supreme Court Admissions Ruling

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that the University of California, Davis School of Medicine unlawfully discriminates on the basis of race in its admissions process. The determination concludes a six-month investigation by the department’s Civil Rights Division into the school’s holistic review practices.

The probe examined how the school weighs race as a factor when evaluating applicants. Officials reviewed admissions data and internal materials used to select students for a class of 133 from roughly 7,000 annual applications. The finding marks the first formal Justice Department determination against a medical school since the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v.

Harvard.

The school must now revise its written policies, training materials, and evaluation rubrics to remove any consideration of race. No compliance deadline was specified in the announcement. >"The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division determined that the University of California, Davis School of Medicine unlawfully discriminates on the basis of race in admissions, violating the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v.

UC Davis must submit proof of revised practices. The ruling will trigger similar scrutiny of other University of California medical schools and public institutions that have continued to weigh race after the 2023 decision. Congress could respond by conditioning future appropriations on explicit compliance certifications.

The investigation began in December 2025 as part of a broader review of elite graduate programs’ adherence to the Supreme Court decision.