US justice department accuses Yale medical school of illegally using race in admissions | Yale University
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday accused Yale University of illegally considering race in medical school admissions, the second institution this month to face allegations of discrimination by the federal agency.
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a letter to the Yale attorney that a justice department study found that Black and Hispanic students had a much better chance of being accepted to medical school than white or Asian students, despite having lower grade point averages and lower test scores.
“Yale has continued its race-based admissions program despite the Supreme Court and the public’s clear mandate to reform,” Dhillon said in a statement. he said. “This department will continue to shine a light on these illegal practices and demand that institutions of higher education comply with federal laws.”
Yale officials and Peter Spivack, the attorney named in the justice department letter, did not immediately respond to email messages seeking comment.
Since Donald Trump returned to office last year, his administration has been pressuring universities to stop using race as a basis for admissions, which conservatives view as illegal discrimination. And a 2023 U.S. supreme court ruling banned the use of affirmative action in college admissions in cases involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
Last week, the justice department notified the University of California at Los Angeles that its medical school was illegally racially biased in admissions.
In his letter to Yale, Dhillon cited the New Haven, Connecticut school’s violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation. It claimed it violated its title and said the justice department was trying to reach a voluntary settlement agreement with the university. He also stated in the letter that he had the authority to take the school to court to enforce Title VI if the institution failed to comply through voluntary means.
The justice department cited differences in grade point averages and standardized test scores as evidence of racial preferences in the incoming classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025. In Yale’s most recent class, Black students had an average GPA of 3.88 and an average MCAT score in the 95th percentile, compared to Asian students with an average GPA of 3.98 and white students with an average GPA of 3.97. GPA. The average MCAT scores for both Asian and white students in this class were in the 100th percentile.
“According to our preliminary review of application-level data, Yale’s use of the word race resulted in a Black application [having] Dhillon’s letter stated that he was 29 times more likely to be interviewed for admission than an equally strong Asian applicant with similar academic qualifications.
The justice department also said Yale uses a holistic admissions process as a tool for the school to consider race.
The letter also cited Yale’s amicus brief in the Students for Fair Admissions case, which led to the high court’s 2023 decision on affirmative action; In that decision, the school explicitly said it could not maintain diverse classes without consideration of race. The department said Yale was able to maintain similarly diverse classes despite evidence that the school engaged in racial discrimination.
Dhillon wrote that the lack of change in Yale’s admissions results after the high court decision indicates “willful noncompliance with this decision.”
In March, a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s policy requiring higher education institutions to collect data showing they fail to consider race in admissions.
