DOJ says UCSF Medical School admissions favored Black, Hispanic applicants

Justice Department opened UCSF probe March 30 after 2025 executive order

The Justice Department on Tuesday found that the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine discriminated against White and Asian applicants in favor of Black and Hispanic candidates during recent admissions cycles — the Trump administration’s latest finding against a university over race-conscious admissions practices following the 2023 Supreme Court ruling. Federal lawyers alleged that UCSF’s application process prompted candidates to identify their race in the first two stages and that Black and Hispanic applicants were then invited to the third and final interview stage at higher rates than White and Asian applicants with stronger academic credentials.

The findings, which cover the 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes, found that UCSF Medical School admitted Hispanic applicants at 4.6 times the rate and Black applicants at 12.6 times the rate of White applicants with the same MCAT scores, undergraduate grade point averages and socioeconomic characteristics.

“Unfortunately, at UCSF Medical School, MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs have taken a backseat to race,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a 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 probe originated in an executive order President Donald Trump signed on January 21, 2025 — his second day back in office. The order directed the attorney general to issue guidance to federally funded educational institutions on how to comply with the 2023 Supreme Court decision that restricted race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

On March 30, Justice Department lawyers informed UCSF Medical School of the investigation and requested admissions data and other documents related to its policies and practices. UPI has asked UCSF Medical School for comment.

The department has announced similar findings against other institutions in recent months, including the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Yale University’s medical school and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, among others.

The department is calling on UCSF to contact it by October 2 to enter discussions on implementing a voluntary resolution agreement to bring the school into compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Trump, who ran on removing left-leaning ideology from public and private spaces, has been targeting universities — many of them among the most celebrated in the nation — over alleged DEI hiring and admissions policies.