DOJ Alleges 15 Med Schools Admit Students Based on Race

Less than a month after declaring that medical schools at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Yale University had violated federal law by considering race or “racial proxies” in admissions, the Department of Justice is expanding its crackdown on the institutions that train America’s physicians.

The DOJ announced Thursday it had launched 15 new investigations regarding “potential race discrimination in medical school admissions.”

The department did not name the institutions in its news release, and when Inside Higher Ed requested clarification, the department did not respond. For now, all the public knows is that the Trump administration is broadening its attempt to “make medicine great again” through civil rights investigations.

“Many of America’s top medical schools appear more concerned about the demographics of their incoming classes than training students to succeed in the profession,” Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in the news release. “Under this Justice Department, we will continue to protect American students from discriminatory and illegal preferences in admissions—especially in professions as critical as medicine, where quality of training should be the top priority.”

In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, Alison Whelan, chief medical officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, responded, “It takes more than test scores to become a good doctor. The AAMC has long advocated for and continues to support medical schools in using mission-aligned selection to consider test scores along with experiences and applicant context to identify applicants most likely to thrive and contribute to the mission.”

She noted that the Medical College Admission Test is just one part of a holistic review that medical schools typically undertake in admitting future doctors, and that diverse classes tend to produce better medical practitioners.

“Data suggests that peer to peer training and skill building among physician trainees is improved when there is a broad range of experiences and perspectives,” she wrote. “Preparing physicians to effectively care for patients from all communities and backgrounds is a valuable element in helping patients achieve optimal health.”

Threat of Funding Cuts

In addition to UCLA and Yale medical schools, the Justice Department has also investigated those at Stanford University, Ohio State University and the University of California, San Diego. In each case, officials requested a wealth of data about the institution’s applicants, with the aim of showing that the institutions prioritized race—or what they consider racial proxies, such as geographic location or “lived experiences”—over merit. If a college under investigation refuses to cooperate or is found guilty of showing racial preference, federal funding for their professional programs could be cut, past DOJ actions show.

This is merely the latest move in the Trump administration’s broader attempt to control college admissions. Last summer, the White House issued an executive order demanding that colleges and universities submit data to verify that they are not unlawfully considering race in admissions decisions. A few months later, the Department of Education proposed a new survey—the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement—as a means for institutions to do so.

So far, ACTS has faced significant pushback; federal courts have blocked it in 17 states.

The administration has turned to launching civil rights investigations to advance its agenda. And medical schools remain a favorite target, partly because they are so dependent on federal funding and partly because they represent what Trump officials see as the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic, which drives the so-called Make America Healthy Again agenda.

‘Shaky Grasp’ on Court Orders

DOJ officials say they are enforcing federal law by examining whether the 15 medical schools in question are complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning affirmative action in college admissions. Trump is also examining whether colleges are following what he says is the court’s interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.

But many higher education and legal experts say the administration is misinterpreting both Title VI and the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina—and using both to justify executive overreach.

“What [past investigation reports] indicate is that the department has a shaky grasp of what the Supreme Court’s majority opinion actually said,” James Murphy, an admissions researcher from the higher ed nonprofit Class Action, wrote in a recent blog post. And the DOJ has “an even shakier grasp of how admissions works, and no grasp at all on what the federal government’s role is since [it] seems to think it should be able to dictate who is qualified to be a doctor in the United States and who is not.”

In SCOTUS’s majority opinion in SFFA v. Harvard, Chief Justice John Roberts expressly wrote that when determining whom to admit, an institution may consider the lived experiences applicants detail in their essays.

“All parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” he wrote.

Still, some, including Kurt Miceli—chief medical officer at Do No Harm, a nonprofit policy and advocacy group that opposes identity politics in health care—support the Trump administration’s actions and believe medical schools are ignoring the Supreme Court’s decision.

“While some schools work to prioritize merit, and our center’s rankings take that into account, accounting for race in admissions is illegal,” Miceli said. “We applaud the Justice Department for taking bold action to hold these schools accountable and enforce the law by expanding its investigation. We will continue to support this administration’s work to return merit to medical education.”

Murphy from Class Action thinks groups like Do No Harm are in large part emboldening the DOJ to open these medical school investigations.

“They certainly have a voice. They’re being listened to by the Trump administration and they’ve come to the attention of Republicans,” Murphy said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed.

Murphy also believes the Trump administration is targeting medical schools over other graduate programs because of the weight the degree carries and the way it impacts people who depend on physicians to ensure their health.

“They’re targeting professions where the stakes are high and you want to make sure people are qualified to do it. They’re trying to induce panic,” he said. And the DOJ is using three key data points to do so: the percentage of Black and Hispanic students in a given class, their GPAs, and their test scores.

“This is—on its face—ridiculous,” Murphy said. Like the AAMC, he argues, “You can’t just look at a test score, GPA and the percentage of the class and then determine whether or not the law has been broken. You need to do a much deeper investigation.”