The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has accused the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine of discriminating based on race in admissions for its incoming classes from 2023 to 2025, the latest in a string of such findings against medical schools.
Five things to know:
- The Justice Department said the school’s conduct violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned race-conscious admissions in higher education.
- According to the Justice Department, UCSF’s admissions process used race to determine which applicants advanced across three stages: a primary application, a secondary application and an interview. Black and Hispanic applicants were invited to interview at higher rates than white and Asian applicants despite having lower MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs, the Justice Department said in the release.
- From 2023 to 2025, when MCAT scores, GPAs and socioeconomic traits were the same, Hispanic applicants were 4.6 times more likely to be admitted than white applicants, while Black applicants were 12.6 times more likely to be admitted, according to the Justice Department.
- UCSF rejected the findings in a statement shared with Becker’s:
“UC San Francisco disagrees with the Department of Justice’s finding regarding the School of Medicine’s admissions process.
Admission to the UCSF School of Medicine is among the most selective in the country. Every applicant is evaluated through a rigorous, individualized review process that prioritizes academic excellence. Academic achievement is fundamental to that review. Grades, prior coursework and MCAT scores are important measures of an applicant’s readiness for a UCSF medical education. Those measures are considered alongside other factors, including clinical experience, research, service, leadership and other experiences to identify future physicians who will excel in patient care, biomedical discovery and service to communities across the country.
Academic excellence has always been central to our admissions process. We will continue to engage constructively with the Department and look forward to resolving this matter.”
- The Justice Department said it is pursuing settlement negotiations with the school and will sue if those efforts fail. It has made similar findings against UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.-based Yale School of Medicine, Sacramento-based UC Davis School of Medicine and the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
In June, the Justice Department opened investigations into 15 unnamed medical schools, while the Education Department is investigating five others.
Read the department’s findings letter here.
