DOJ: UC San Diego Med's admissions favor Black, Hispanic applicants

July 21 (UPI) -- The University of California San Diego School of Medicine unlawfully used race in its admissions process, favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over their White and Asian counterparts, the Justice Department said as the Trump administration cracks down on race-conscious admissions at medical schools.

According to the Justice Department's findings, which were made public Monday, the school manipulated applicant data to achieve greater racial diversity in student admissions. Federal lawyers said admissions officers used applicants' responses to questions about overcoming "hardships" to create subgroups within categories based on MCAT scores and GPAs.

The federal department said the school used this system as a "racial proxy" to increase the diversity of its student body.

"San Diego Med admission rates for Black applicants were more than double the admission rates for White applicants," the Justice Department said in its letter to the school, pointing to 2025 admissions rates, which showed that 5.14% of Black applicants were admitted compared with nearly 2% of White applicants.

"The applicant-level data produced by San Diego Med also indicated that a Black or Hispanic student had a substantially higher likelihood of being admitted than a White or Asian student with the same academic credentials."

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civli Rights Division said in a statement, "San Diego Med's blatant efforts to prioritize race are illegal, and we will end these practices."

Diversity, equity and inclusion policies have been a target of President Donald Trump, who has sought to eliminate what his administration describes as illegal DEI practices from public and private spaces, including institutions of higher education, since returning to the White House.

The Trump administration directed the Justice Department and the Department of Education in an executive order signed Jan. 21, 2025, to issue guidance to federally funded educational institutions on complying with the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling that struck down race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on Monday said UC San Diego School of Medicine's admissions process was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, among other characteristics, and that 2023 Supreme Court decision, which the Trump administration interprets to ban the use of race in higher education admissions.

The announcement on Monday comes a month after the Justice Department announced similar findings in UC Davis.

On June 4, the Justice Department announced 15 new medical-school investigations.