DOJ accuses Yale and UCLA medical schools of discriminating against white and Asian applicants

Politics DOJ accuses Yale and UCLA medical schools of discriminating against white and Asian applicants Letters cite test score and GPA differences, igniting debate over what it means to be ‘qualified’ Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By Anil OzaMay 15, 2026 General Assignment Reporter Anil Oza[email protected]Anil Oza is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the NIH and health equity. You can reach him on Signal at aniloza.16. The Justice Department sent a letter to Yale School of Medicine on Thursday, alleging it was illegally discriminating against applicants who are not Black or Hispanic, following a similar missive sent last week to the University of California, Los Angeles medical school. A 2023 Supreme Court ruling prohibited the use of affirmative action in admission decisions, but the Trump administration accused the medical schools of continuing discriminatory practices despite that decision, citing differences in average test scores and GPAs between students of different racial groups over the past three admissions cycles. Advertisement “We will carefully review the Department of Justice’s letter,” said Karen Peart, Yale’s associate vice president for communications, in an email. “Yale School of Medicine is confident in the rigorous admissions process we follow.” The letters are part of a broader administration campaign against medical schools’ and research universities’ efforts to diversify the scientific workforce, legal experts and medical education researchers said, but in its focus on test scores, the DOJ is also relitigating arguments about what it means to be qualified to be a physician. Over the past two decades, medical schools have broadened the criteria they use to assess applicants, in part as a response to calls to diversify the medical workforce, which may translate into better health outcomes for marginalized patients. “The position taken by the DOJ in their letter is similar to other Trump administration statements that they are attempting to reassert the importance of merit for higher education and society as a whole,” said Carson Byrd, a sociologist who studies racism in higher education at the University of Michigan. “One problem is that such a meritocracy has never existed, and it’s ahistorical to believe that one could exist in the U.S., particularly by dismantling race-conscious policies.”Advertisement He said the administration wants to “return to a pre-affirmative action era. However, the only era that existed before then was Jim Crow and its highly segregated educational opportunities — hardly an era of colorblind meritocracy.” The Trump administration has pursued several avenues to dismantle initiatives to increase diversity, including at universities. On his first day in office last year, Trump signed an executive order targeting “radical and wasteful” DEI programs. It has terminated federal research grants for work mentioning health disparities or intended to diversify the scientific workforce. Another executive order targeted the main medical school accrediting body, which was followed by the group removing requirements to teach health equity. In recent months, the DOJ had asked medical schools for information from student applications, including test scores, race, ZIP codes, and alumni ties. In January, the DOJ joined a lawsuit against the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, filed by Do No Harm, which advocates against diversity initiatives. The DOJ accused UCLA of continuing to “intentionally discriminate against applicants based on their race” despite the 2023 Supreme Court decision. Since that case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, was finalized, medical schools have seen less diversity in their admitted classes. One study found that the percent of applicants from underrepresented backgrounds in medicine that were admitted into medical school decreased from 24% in the years before the ruling to 20% in the year after. The ruling didn’t explicitly spell out what universities can consider in admissions decisions, and pressure from the Trump administration may now be influencing that discussion. Public universities in California have not been able to consider race in admissions for decades, under state law. Instead, some have adopted a holistic, race-neutral approach that, in at least one case, yielded a remarkably diverse school. In targeting diversity initiatives, the Trump administration has embraced “disparate impact theory,” a legal argument that has been used widely in civil rights cases to allege that a policy that is race neutral is nonetheless illegal if it has racially disparate impacts.Advertisement But, the administration has used such thinking against medical schools to claim that race-neutral admissions policies are creating discriminatory outcomes, which creates a bind for medical schools. “If you set out to [have diversity initiatives], you’re damned, and if you set out to say, ‘I’m not doing this,’ you’re damned too,” said Andrew Twinamatsiko, director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown Law, who has written about the implications of the UCLA lawsuit. In its findings against UCLA, the DOJ outlines “statistical evidence of intentional discrimination” by comparing the scores on the MCAT medical school admissions test and GPAs of admitted students by race. According to the letter, in 2023, white and Asian applicants who were admitted had a median MCAT score of 514, while Black and Hispanic admitted students had a median score of 507. In the letter to Yale, the DOJ makes a similar argument, noting that in 2023, Black and Hispanic applicants had scores of 517 and 518, respectively, compared to a median score of 523 for white and Asian applicants. While there is a spread in scores, many medical educators say MCAT scores are an imperfect measure of a person’s potential as a physician. According to 2019 data, medical students who scored between 510 and 513 have a 98% chance to complete their first year of medical school. Those with scores between 498 and 501 still had a 94% chance of completing their first year. “There is sort of a general correlation between MCAT scores and success in medical school, but it’s a crude metric,” said Gregory Curfman, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has written about the importance of diversity in medical schools. “People who may not have the top MCAT scores but get into medical school, they move through medical school, and they get better and better.” A test like the MCAT biases admissions toward those with access to resources to prepare for the test, according to some critics, and it misses a suite of other skill sets that are important to being a physician. That is why some medical schools have leaned into “holistic” admissions, which considers factors such as interviews, work experiences, and community engagement. Advertisement One effort to broaden the criteria used to select applicants is a test developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges, called the PREview Exam. The test assesses applicants on situational judgement, with the goal of measuring applicants’ empathy and professionalism. This exam, which has been used by UCLA, was criticized by the DOJ as serving as a proxy for race. Javarro Russell, senior director of admissions and testing services at AAMC, said that the test cannot be, and is not intended to serve, as a proxy for race. And the focus on test scores and GPA as metrics of who is qualified to be a physician is “unfortunate,” he added. “There’s always going to be other nonacademic aspects of an individual student that institutions are going to look for that they believe will be helpful in ensuring that that learner is able to thrive” in medical school. The fact that medical schools have a mission to produce physicians who are able to treat the American public may mean they are held to different standards than undergraduate institutions that were the focus of the Harvard ruling. Some research has suggested that patients seeing doctors of the same race may have better health outcomes. “You could argue, ‘Medical schools are different than undergraduate institutions, because they have a purpose, which is to turn out a physician workforce that can address the health of Americans. In that case, diversity isn’t just a nice-to-have.’ It’s, ‘We need a diverse physician workforce, because that will, in turn, help address health disparities and improve the health of patients,’” said Carmel Shachar, director of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School who has written about this argument. “It will be interesting to see how the investigation continues, and whether this will turn into a case that will pressure test that line of argument.” STAT’s coverage of health inequities is supported by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.Advertisement diversity and inclusion, doctors, education, legal Submit a correction requestReprints Anil Oza General Assignment Reporter Anil Oza is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the NIH and health equity. You can reach him on Signal at aniloza.16. 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