The Justice Department has accused the University of California, San Francisco’s elite medical school of deliberately discriminating against white and Asian applicants in admissions.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent a blistering nine-page findings letter Tuesday to UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, demanding the prestigious institution negotiate a resolution or face a federal lawsuit and other enforcement actions. The school has until Oct. 2 to respond.
“Unfortunately, at UCSF Medical School, MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs have taken a backseat to race,” Dhillon told The Post 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.”
Federal investigators found that in 2025, Black applicants enjoyed nearly 13 times better odds of admission than white students with comparable qualifications. The school admitted 7% of Black applicants and 4.8% of Hispanic applicants that year, compared with just 1.7% of white applicants and 2% of Asian applicants.
The academic disparities were stark. White students averaged a 519 MCAT score — in the 96th percentile — and a 3.95 GPA, while Asian students averaged a 518, in the 95th percentile, and a 3.93 GPA. Admitted Black students averaged a 514 and a 3.86 GPA, while Hispanic students averaged a 513 and a 3.88 GPA.
“In other words, the average admitted black and Hispanic student academically underperformed the average rejected white and Asian student,” Dhillon wrote in her letter.
The DOJ concluded that UCSF “deliberately discriminated” based on race for the incoming classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Investigators accused the school of using application essays, hardship questions, interviews and ostensibly race-neutral criteria as proxies to identify and favor applicants from racial groups the school considers underrepresented in medicine.
The department also singled out two pipeline programs offering specialized admission tracks, scholarships and other assistance. Black, Hispanic and other designated students made up 89% of enrollment in one program during the 2024-25 academic year.
UCSF receives nearly $1 billion in federal funding annually, including a $5 million grant from the Justice Department itself.
School officials pushed back hard in a statement Tuesday, saying they “disagree” with the findings.
“Admission to the UCSF School of Medicine is among the most selective in the country,” officials said.
“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.”
UCSF officials added that other factors include “clinical experience, research, service, leadership” to identify future physicians.
“Academic excellence has always been central to our admissions process,” they continued. “We will continue to engage constructively with the department and look forward to resolving this matter.”
The investigation began in March, and UCSF turned over admissions data only after receiving multiple extensions. The school produced merely 83 additional documents, most of which the feds deemed unresponsive, and failed to explain racial differences in the grades and MCAT scores of admitted students.
Tuesday’s letter forms part of a broader Trump administration crackdown on university admissions practices following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision prohibiting race-conscious college admissions. The DOJ previously issued similar findings against the medical schools at UCLA and UC San Diego. Earlier this month, the department found that UC Berkeley’s law school deliberately discriminated against white and Asian applicants, saying a comparable Black applicant had 5.8 times greater odds of admission in 2025. In May, the DOJ found Yale’s medical school intentionally used racial preferences, and in February, the department sued Harvard to obtain admissions records the university allegedly withheld from investigators.
UCSF admits just 2.5% of more than 10,000 annual applicants, making it one of the most competitive medical schools in the nation.
Dhillon invited UCSF to negotiate an agreement to change its admissions practices and pipeline programs.
The DOJ will seek to force compliance through a lawsuit if no agreement is reached by the Oct. 2 deadline.