The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) medical school violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating based on race when admitting its 2023-2025 incoming classes, particularly to the benefit of black and hispanic applicants, the DOJ announced on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, at UCSF Medical School, MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs have taken a backseat to race,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a press release. “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.”
There are three stages in the admissions process to UCSF’s medical school: The primary application, the secondary application, and an interview. The DOJ claims that both the primary and secondary stages prompted an applicant to discuss their race in response to a diversity statement. The department further states that the admissions staff used race as a factor in determining who would advance through all three stages and be admitted.
“While less than 10% of Secondary Applications advance to the interview stage, black and Hispanic applicants were invited to interview at far higher rates than white and Asian applicants, despite having lower MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs,” the DOJ said.
For the incoming class in 2025, white applicants invited to interview had a mean MCAT score of 518 and mean GPA of 3.92, whereas the Asian students invited to interview had a mean MCAT score of 517 and a mean GPA of 3.92. By comparison, the Hispanic applicants invited to interview had a mean MCAT score of 513 and GPA of 3.83, while the black applicants invited to interview had a mean score of 512 and a 3.85 GPA.
Of the students accepted to the incoming class in 2025, white students had a mean MCAT score of 519 and mean GPA of 3.95, while Asians had a mean MCAT score of 518 and a mean GPA of 3.93. The black students admitted had a mean MCAT score of 514 and mean GPA of 3.86, whereas admitted Hispanic students had a mean MCAT score of 513 and mean GPA of 3.88.
The department alleges that the UCSF medical school was 4.6 times more likely to admit Hispanic applicants and 12.6 times more likely to admit black applicants who had comparable MCAT scores, undergraduate GPAs, and socioeconomic traits to white applicants.
“Not only were the mean test scores and undergraduate grades of admitted black and Hispanic applicants lower than those of admitted white and Asian applicants, but they are also lower than those of rejected white and Asian applicants,” the Department of Justice said in its letter to UCSF, dated Tuesday. “In other words, the average admitted black and Hispanic student academically underperformed the average rejected white and Asian student.”
According to the DOJ, the UCSF medical school also resorted to a wide range of strategies and racial proxies to circumvent the Student for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admissions are illegal. In an effort to achieve desired levels of racial diversity, the DOJ alleges, the UCSF medical school engaged in targeted outreach and participated in “pipeline” programs designed to advantage minority groups, such as by offering mentorship or application assistance.
The university openly boasts on its website and publicly published documents that its current “initiatives” include the “black health initiative,” developing protocols for a standard land acknowledgement, and the “Latinx Center of Excellence,” the latter of which is focused on improving healthcare particularly for “Latinx populations.” According to an annual report, the university’s Office of Opportunity and Outreach partnered with the Office of Graduate Medical Education to develop the “best practices in recruiting and facilitate belonging activities such as National Latiné Physicians Day and Black Day of Healing.” The university also annually hosts a “Health Equity and Anti-Racism Research Symposium.”
The university offers various certificates, trainings, and programs outside of its official degree programs. USCF requires all university members to complete an online module titled “Foundations of Anti-Discrimination Training.” The university also conducts the “Dialogue and Inquiry Certificate Program,” which it describes as “empower[ing] faculty, staff, and healthcare professionals to lead with empathy, cultural humility, and critical consciousness” by “build[ing] practical skills through facilitated dialogue, reflective inquiry, and relational leadership.” The Institute for Democracy, Excellence, and Anti-Discrimination Leadership offers a program that “prepares participants to navigate laws and policies to uphold UCSF’s commitment to democracy and belonging and design action plans to create career pathways and advance research, education, and patient care through historically informed and climate-responsive strategies and practices.”
Upcoming events offered by UCSF’s Office of Opportunity and Outreach (previously called the “Office of Diversity and Outreach”) include the topics “Bias Recognition and Response,” “Microaggressions in the Learning Environment,” “Filipinx History Month,” “Supporting Queer & Trans Survivors Self-Determination,” and “Traditional Native Hawaiian Knowledge.”
Another unit within the UCSF is the Office of Restorative Justice, which offers sessions for a “restorative approach” to solving “relational disconnection” by organizing a specialized “impact circle” or “restorative conversation” that can “strengthen a sense of belonging.” The office also moderates “community circles,” the “essential elements” of which include seating participants in a circle, “opening and closing ceremonies,” and “facilitator(s) who will hold the circle accountable to the circle agreements.”
“A restorative approach involves a structured, facilitated conversation that explores: What happened? What was the impact? What is needed to restore respect, dignity, and care?,” says the office’s website.
Resources provided on the office’s website include links to “Building Your Abolitionist Tools,” a list of “embodiment practices,” and a PDF of a free workbook titled “So You’re Ready to Choose Love.”
“The dominant, colonial culture is based on a Eurocentric notion of justice. It is legalistic and based around a competitive, punitive model. Yet many other communities and cultures — particularly Indigenous communities and cultures worldwide — hold a perspective on justice that is collaborative and reparative,” says the workbook. It continues, “Today, the movement to revolutionize justice and conflict resolution systems are led by Black and Indigenous communities. Intersectional feminist, queer and trans communities as well have played a central role in shaping the dialogue on justice and social change.”
A scenario in the workbook to evaluate through the “Trauma-Informed Conflict Sequence model” involves “a young racialized trans woman born in Canada” named Elaine who works in a non-profit organization where “most of the managers are white.” Elaine feels like a “diversity” hire. When Elaine corrects “an older man of colour” named Gavin over another instance of “misgendering,” he quickly apologizes and responds that “I’m sorry if I said something that offended you.” But Elaine has become increasingly angry at being regularly called “sir” by Gavin and therefore informs a manager, who then speaks to Gavin. He notes that, in the nearly 15 years he has worked at the organization, he has “repeatedly been singled out as a ‘problem’ by white managers while other workers have been given a pass for much worse behavior and promoted over him.” Gavin expresses that he was not raised in an environment where he had much exposure to trans-identifying individuals, and he “hates being treated as a ‘scary’ man of colour.”
UCSF receives nearly $1 billion dollars in federal funding each year, including a $5 million grant from the Department of Justice itself.