The Justice Department says UC San Diego’s medical school ran a secret race-based admissions track that shut out better-qualified white and Asian applicants in the name of “diversity.”
Story Snapshot
- Justice Department investigators say UC San Diego used a “shadow” admissions process to favor Black and Hispanic applicants over white and Asian students.
- Admissions staff allegedly used “hardship” questions as a proxy for race, then lowered standards for flagged applicants after the Supreme Court banned racial preferences.
- Federal data review found lower grades and test scores for admitted Black and Hispanic students than for rejected white and Asian applicants in recent cycles.
- UC San Diego denies wrongdoing, claiming all applicants face the same strict academic thresholds, even as federal officials cite internal documents and statistics.
DOJ says UC San Diego ran a race-based “shadow” admissions track
The United States Department of Justice found that the University of California San Diego School of Medicine used race as a key factor in admissions decisions after the Supreme Court banned such practices. Investigators say the school built a separate “shadow application process” that sat on top of the normal system. This extra track allegedly let admissions staff favor Black and Hispanic applicants, labeled “underrepresented minorities in medicine,” by treating them differently from white and Asian candidates with similar or stronger records.
Justice Department officials say the medical school manipulated applicant data to increase racial diversity instead of focusing on merit. Internal documents from the school reportedly show staff using “race-neutral” criteria in name only, with the real goal of boosting numbers for certain groups. According to the federal findings, this pattern violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars race discrimination by any school that receives federal money. The department tied its action directly to the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions ruling that outlawed racial preferences in higher education.
How “hardship” questions allegedly became a proxy for race
Investigators say admissions staff leaned on “hardship” essay questions to quietly sort applicants by race. These questions asked students to explain struggles they faced and how they overcame disadvantage. According to the Justice Department, reviewers used answers to help decide which applicants were likely Black or Hispanic and then steered more of those students into special subgroups. The school allegedly combined these hardship subgroups with main academic groups and then batched applicants for interviews in ways that boosted interview chances for those flagged as underrepresented minorities.
Justice Department officials say that for some admissions cycles after the Supreme Court ruling, interview reviewers were given access to the applicant’s race. That access, paired with the hardship-based sorting, allegedly ensured more Black and Hispanic students received interviews while white and Asian students with stronger scores were passed over. The department’s letter says the result was clear: more qualified white and Asian applicants were rejected because of their race, while lower-credentialed Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted. Federal lawyers argue this setup was designed specifically to “skirt” the ban on racial preferences by hiding them behind subjective questions.
Federal data review finds discrimination in recent admission cycles
The Justice Department did not rely only on internal emails and process charts; it also ran a statistical review of recent admissions cycles. That analysis focused on the 2022–2023, 2023–2024, and 2024–2025 classes, all after the Supreme Court’s decision. According to the department’s findings letter, the data show “significant disparity” in objective academic metrics between Black and Hispanic applicants and others. Federal officials concluded that the school discriminated against white and Asian applicants in those three cycles and likely continues to do so.
The department says UC San Diego failed to fully explain why admitted Black and Hispanic students often had lower test scores and grade point averages than rejected white and Asian applicants. Investigators had asked the school to account for test score and GPA gaps by race and to produce analyses of admissions trends. The letter states the school did not provide adequate explanations for those differences. Combined with internal communications that allegedly showed an intent to “tinker with the racial representation” of incoming classes, the Justice Department says the evidence points to illegal race-based decision making.
UC San Diego’s denial and the larger battle over “woke” admissions
UC San Diego disputes the Justice Department’s findings and insists it follows the law. In public statements, the university says all applicants to the medical school “must meet strict academic thresholds” and that those rules are applied uniformly. The school also claims it is committed to fair processes and compliance with federal and state anti-discrimination rules. So far, the university has not released detailed admissions data to the public that would let outsiders test either its claims or the government’s numbers.
NEW: The DOJ says UC San Diego's med school illegally used race in admissions to discriminate against white and Asian American applicants. The DOJ alleges the school used hardship questions as a proxy for race. UCSD says it follows the law in admissions.https://t.co/8e9FSlQV4q
— Jaweed Kaleem (@jaweedkaleem) July 20, 2026
This clash fits into a wider Trump administration push to clean up medical school admissions nationwide. The Civil Rights Division has opened multiple investigations and already announced findings of illegal race-based admissions at the University of California Los Angeles and Yale University medical schools. Federal officials say many elite schools tried to keep old diversity systems alive by swapping direct race questions for “race-neutral” proxies. For many conservatives, the UC San Diego case looks like more proof that powerful universities used clever tricks to dodge the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings while hardworking students were left behind.
Sources:
nypost.com, reuters.com, fox5sandiego.com, justice.gov
