The Department of Justice and the Department of Education have opened investigations into 26 medical schools regarding admissions practices. The Department of Justice released findings from four investigations, asserting that the University of California Los Angeles, University of California Davis, University of California San Diego, and Yale University discriminated against applicants based on race.

The investigations allege that the institutions are violating the Supreme Court’s ban on race-based admissions. The government has not named 15 of the 26 institutions under investigation. In April, the Department of Justice demanded three schools hand over a year’s worth of applicant data, including test scores, ZIP codes, relationships to alumni, and ties to donors dating back seven years.

The Department of Justice stated it evaluated applicant-level data and found that Black and Hispanic applicants with equivalent academic credentials at Yale, UC Davis, and UC San Diego were more likely than white or Asian applicants to be admitted. The Department of Justice letters to Yale, UC Davis, and UC San Diego do not describe how the applicant-level data was analyzed. The Department of Justice declined to comment on how it is launching the investigations.

Each Department of Justice letter includes a subsection called “Intent to Discriminate” that describes ways in which the schools’ administrators have promoted racial diversity. Multiple Department of Justice letters criticize medical school administrators and admissions teams for saying or implying that they hope to enroll a diverse student body. The Department of Justice concluded that a 2025 Yale admissions guidance slide deck contained graphics discussing “implicit bias” and “promoting diversity.”

The Department of Justice stated that median MCAT scores for Black and Hispanic applicants are lower than for white and Asian students at the four investigated institutions, both before and after the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action. For Yale University’s 2025 incoming class, the median MCAT scores for white and Asian students were in the 100th percentile, while the medians for Black students and Hispanic students were in the 95th and 94th percentiles, respectively. For the University of California San Diego, Asian students’ median MCAT scores were in the 96th percentile, white students’ were in the 92nd percentile, and Black and Hispanic students’ were both in the 79th percentile.

The Department of he stated that data for the University of California Los Angeles incoming class of 2025 reveals disparities between the academic qualifications of admitted students in different racial groups continue to the present time. The Department of Justice letter to the University of California Los Angeles did not include a chart comparing MCAT scores by race or list specific scores for the incoming class of 2025. The Department of Justice letter to UC Davis found fault with the school’s “UC Davis Scale,” which gives students a score based on socioeconomic criteria. UC Davis is public university in the Davis, California area; part of the University of California system.

Why It Matters

These investigations test the enforcement of the Supreme Court's ban on race-based admissions across 26 medical schools. The government's focus on applicant-level data and internal communications regarding diversity signals a shift toward scrutinizing how institutions evaluate candidates beyond explicit racial quotas. Findings alleging that applicants with equivalent credentials face different admission outcomes based on race could establish new precedents for how medical schools weigh socioeconomic factors and diversity goals.