DOJ Alleges UC Medical School Discriminates in Race-Based Admissions

A Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the University of California–San Francisco’s (UCSF’s) medical school has determined that the institution discriminates on a racial basis during its admission process.

The investigation looked at whether admission policies of the UCSF School of Medicine complied with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the university was deemed to have “illegally discriminated on the basis of race in its medical school admissions processes for the incoming classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 and in its operation of diversity pipeline programs,” the DOJ said in a Sept. 22 letter sent to the university chancellor.

“UCSF Med openly admits that its goal is to increase enrollment from specific racial groups it designates as underrepresented minorities in medicine (URM), which excludes all white students and most Asian students,” the DOJ said.

Title VI prohibits programs and activities receiving federal funding assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The investigation specifically looked at whether UCSF Med complied with Title VI as interpreted by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard case. In the SFFA case, the Supreme Court struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies at U.S. colleges in June 2023, thereby ending so-called affirmative action in higher education institutions.

The letter cited a student-selection admissions policy of the UCSF Med to ensure that the student population “reflect the population of California.” According to the DOJ, this was despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in the SFFA case that “outright racial balancing” was “patently unconstitutional.”

Meanwhile, the university said that it would engage with the DOJ and looked forward to resolving the matter.

“UC San Francisco disagrees with the Department of ​Justice’s finding regarding the School of Medicine’s admissions process,” the university said.

Every application to medical school is evaluated “through a rigorous, ‌individualized ⁠review process that prioritizes academic excellence,” according to the university.

Favoring Certain Applicants

According to the DOJ, the UCSF Med’s Admissions Committee invites Hispanic and black applicants for interviews at “far higher rates” than Asian and white applicants, despite the black and Hispanic individuals having lower mean MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs.

Post interviews, the committee decides on which applicants to admit. Between 2023 and 2025, these decisions “heavily favored” Hispanic and black individuals over their white and Asian counterparts, according to the letter.

During this period, the school accepted 1.5 to 1.7 percent of white applicants and 1.98 to 2.55 percent of Asian applicants, which are lower rates than the 4.83 to 6.69 percent for Hispanic applicants and 6.96 to 11.43 percent for black applicants, the DOJ said.

UCSF Med also featured diversity programs that involved scholarships, stipends, assistance with college admissions, and research opportunities, which preferred certain student populations, the DOJ said in the letter.

One such program, the university’s Programs in Medical Education (PRIME) initiative, seeks to increase medical student enrollment. In a February 2025 report on the PRIME program, the university said that “increasing the racial and ethnic diversity” of the health workforce was one of the ways to improve health outcomes and attain “health equity.”

In a Sept. 22 statement, the DOJ said that UCSF Med was 12.6 times more likely to admit black students and 4.6 times more likely to admit Hispanic students, even when their socioeconomic traits, MCAT scores, and GPAs were the same as white students.

“Unfortunately, at UCSF Medical School, MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs have taken a backseat to race,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the statement.

“Aspiring doctors should be admitted based on their qualifications. The Supreme Court has spoken clearly—federally funded medical schools may not admit students based on misguided and illegal notions of diversity.”

The Epoch Times reached out to UCSF for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Reuters contributed to this report.