Justice Department Concluded that Yale University School of Medicine continued to use race in admissions Following the Supreme Court’s decision in the case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) in 2023, one of the most selective medical schools in the country was put under federal civil rights enforcement.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said on May 14 Letter (PDF file) “Yale Ko Ki School”Applicants continue to be deliberately discriminated against on the basis of their caste”in the upcoming classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 — meaning the alleged conduct spans both before and after the SFFA decision.
The findings come from a one-year Title VI compliance review scheduled to begin in April 2025. The DOJ said internal Yale documents showed that admissions personnel were trained on race-conscious selection even after the SFFA, including a 2024 admissions slide that was simply labeled “Admissions after SCOTUS” and a 2025 committee return presentation titled “Race-Neutral Admissions: Examples from the Literature” that the DOJ said explained how to use racial proxies to maintain prior admissions.
by numbers
For the incoming MD class of 2025, the DOJ said the average accepted MCAT scores were:
- Black: 518 (95th percentile)
- Hispanic: 517 (94th percentile)
- White: 524 (100th percentile)
- Asian: 524 (100th percentile)
The DOJ also said that its initial statistical review found that black applicants were 29 times more likely to receive an interview than Asian applicants with similar qualifications. According to university data, Yale’s acceptance rate for the MD class of 2028 was 4.9%.
between the lines: The DOJ pointed to a presentation by the Yale Committee that examined how University of California, Davis Adjusted its socioeconomic advantage formula to increase the intake of “underrepresented people in medicine” from 10.7% to 22.7%, and said that “numerical data indicate that Yale took a similar approach” — a roadmap for race-neutral language that produces race-based outcomes, according to the letter.
Context: The action came a week after the DOJ made similar allegations against UCLA’s medical school and in March investigating Ohio State, Stanford and UC San Diego medical schools. The DOJ has identified $842,078 in direct grant funding that it currently provides to Yale and is seeking a voluntary settlement agreement, failing which, the agency can compel compliance.
How it connects: Medical school sits at the high end of professional education costs, with the average physician carrying approximately $202,000 in student loan debt upon graduation.
Federal enforcement that dictates how medical schools admit students (whether through rigorous race-neutral standards or new socioeconomic adjustments) directly impacts which applicants gain access to programs where tuition, student loan loads, and post-graduate earnings all drive the top costs of higher education.
Yale said it would review the DOJ letter. If the school does not enter a voluntary settlement, the DOJ may take the case to court. More medical school findings are expected as the Trump administration’s Title VI enforcement campaign continues.
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