The Department of Justice's civil rights division has accused the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical School of violating federal law by using race in its admissions process, according to a finding announced by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. The investigation revealed that Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted at significantly higher rates than white and Asian applicants with comparable academic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
In a statement on X, Dhillon highlighted the disparity: "UCSF Med School is 4.6x more likely to admit Hispanic applicants & 12.6x more likely to admit black applicants, than white applicants w/ the SAME academic & socioeconomic backgrounds." She added, "Race has no place in admissions & @CivilRights Division will end these illegal practices!"
The finding comes two years after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down race-based admissions in higher education. That case, brought by plaintiffs who argued that Harvard discriminated against Asian applicants, set a precedent that race-conscious admissions policies are unconstitutional. Despite the ruling, UCSF allegedly continued to ask applicants about their race and used that information at multiple stages of its selection process.
According to the Justice Department's investigation, UCSF's application process involves a primary application, a secondary application, and an interview. The department found that race influenced which candidates advanced from one stage to the next. Notably, while fewer than 10% of secondary applicants reached the interview stage, Black and Hispanic applicants were invited to interviews at far higher rates than white and Asian applicants, even though they had lower MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs. From 2023 to 2025, UCSF admitted Black and Hispanic students who academically underperformed the average rejected white or Asian applicant.
Civil rights advocates have long argued that such practices are illegal under federal law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in programs receiving federal funding. The same legal principles that protect Black applicants from discrimination should also protect white and Asian applicants, they say. The Supreme Court's 2023 ruling made clear that universities cannot use race as a factor in admissions, yet UCSF's actions suggest a continued disregard for that mandate.
Harmeet Dhillon, who has been a prominent figure in civil rights enforcement, drew parallels to historical discrimination against Jewish applicants in American higher education. She noted that the same logic applies to all racial groups, whether the discrimination is against whites, Asians, or any other demographic. "The same thing that applies to Jewish students applies to whites, and Asians, and, by the way, would apply as well to Black students and Hispanic students and Native Americans if, for whatever reason, some racist admissions officers were trying to depress the number of accepted students from any of those groups," she said.
The Department of Justice has given UCSF an opportunity to bring its policies into compliance with federal law. If the school fails to do so, Dhillon indicated that the civil rights division will file a lawsuit. The case is likely to intensify the ongoing national debate over affirmative action and racial preferences in education, a topic that has also spilled into other areas, such as tax policy for private schools and even federal law enforcement initiatives.
UCSF has not yet publicly responded to the findings. The university, which is part of the University of California system, had previously maintained that its admissions practices were lawful. However, the Justice Department's investigation suggests otherwise, and the outcome could set a significant precedent for medical schools and other graduate programs across the country.
Critics of race-conscious admissions argue that such policies undermine meritocracy and create unfair disadvantages for certain groups. Proponents, on the other hand, contend that diversity in medicine is essential to addressing health disparities. But with the Supreme Court's ruling and now this federal enforcement action, the legal landscape is shifting. As Dhillon said, "Race has no place in admissions." The coming months will reveal whether UCSF and other institutions will comply.
