DOJ Faults UC San Diego Med School’s Admissions Practices

The University of California at San Diego’s medical school discriminated on the basis of race in admissions decisions over the course of three cycles, the Justice Department claimed this week. 

The agency has been investigating the medical school since March and detailed its findings in an eight-page letter to the university. According to DOJ officials, the university discriminated on the basis of race by allowing applicants to share how they overcame certain disadvantages. That hardship question, the government argued, served as a way for admissions administrators to determine which students came from an underrepresented minority group and then give them a boost.

The UC San Diego medical school added the question after the Supreme Court struck down the use of race-conscious admissions policies in 2023. Before that decision, the university would sort students into three groups based on their MCAT scores and GPAs, the DOJ letter said. Students could end up in Group B if they had MCAT scores in the 83rd percentile or were from underrepresented backgrounds and scored in the 50th percentile. The GPA cutoffs also varied.

The university’s application data from 2019 to 2025 “shows significant disparities in MCAT scores and GPAs between different racial groups of admitted students,” according to the DOJ letter.

DOJ officials added that “the evidence shows that San Diego Med deliberately discriminated against applicants because of their race both before and after [the Supreme Court decision]. San Diego Med has sought to racially diversify its student body by using race and race-correlated proxies even in the face of federal law and California’s longstanding ban on affirmative action.”

UC San Diego said in a statement that it’s reviewing DOJ’s letter and is committed to complying with federal law.

In his Supreme Court decision banning the consideration of race in admissions, however, Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly wrote that the ruling didn’t prohibit “universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

“UC San Diego School of Medicine is proud to produce some of the highest-performing physicians and researchers in the nation, with residency placement rates that consistently meet or exceed national averages,” the statement said. “All applicants to the school’s Doctor of Medicine program must meet strict academic thresholds, a requirement that is and was applied uniformly to all applicants.”

The Justice Department plans to engage in settlement talks with university administrators over the admissions practices, according to the news release. If those talks fail, DOJ could sue.

UC San Diego is one of several universities that the DOJ has recently accused of discriminating based on race in admissions decisions, and at least 15 other med schools are currently under investigation. Pressure continues to build on medical schools nationwide; the Education Department announced Tuesday that it was investigating five more medical schools. The five new schools under investigation are Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine, East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, St. Louis University School of Medicine, Western University of Health Sciences and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

Experts have criticized the Justice Department’s previous findings of discrimination and said the administration is taking an expansive view of what’s prohibited by the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision.