DOJ Joins Lawsuit Accusing UCLA Med School of Unlawful Race-Based Admissions

The Justice Department is joining a lawsuit against the University of California Los Angeles medical school for alleged race-based admissions that it says violates a Supreme Court ruling.

Last May, student groups sued the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA regarding the continued use of race in admission practices, despite a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that barred universities from using race as a factor in admissions decisions.

Plaintiffs who brought the initial case included Students for Fair Admissions, which previously sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina in cases that were decided by the high court. The other plaintiff is Do No Harm. Both groups represent students denied admission into the UCLA medical school.

“Even after the Supreme Court banned race-balancing, the Geffen School kept discriminating by using illegal DEI preferences in admissions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a public statement Thursday.  

This case is being handled by the Educational Opportunities Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

“As the Supreme Court stated more than 80 years ago, a free people, founded on the doctrine of equality, regard distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry as inherently odious,” Dhillon added.

The Justice Department complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California asserts the UCLA medical school gathers data on the race of its applicants, then uses racial preferences to balance its admissions classes by race.

The complaint notes: “UCLA Med’s Associate Dean for Admissions, Jennifer Lucero, boldly states on her official profile that ‘she takes a special interest in diversity issues in medicine.’” Luceron’s page on the UCLA website lists her as Vice Chair for Inclusive Excellence in Anesthesiology at the medical school.

The complaint further says large disparities exist between minority applicants and non-minority applicants in Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores. 

“According to data reviewed by the United States, UCLA Med’s class incoming in 2024 has median MCAT scores of 508 for Black, 506 for Hispanic, 515 for Asian, and 513 for White matriculants,” the DOJ complaint says. “These correspond to percentile rankings of 75, 66, 90, and 86, respectively.”

The DOJ press release called the practice “invidious racism” that “stigmatizes minority applicants as less qualified.”

“As the Supreme Court has made clear, admission into our nation’s educational institutions cannot be based on discriminatory racial policies,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Today’s intervention is the Department of Justice’s latest effort to hold our universities accountable for unlawful policy — especially in the state of California.”

Almost three decades before the high court decision on race-based admissions, California voters in 1996 adopted Proposition 209 that banned racial consideration for public education, hiring, and contracting. 

The Daily Signal sought comment from spokespersons for both the David Geffen School of Medicine and for UCLA. Neither immediately responded. 

A spokesperson for the school of medicine told Reuters that it did not comment on pending litigation, and that the medical school was “committed to fair processes” in all programs and activities, including admissions, in line with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

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