BUZZ
Justice Department is investigating admissions at Stanford, Ohio State, UC San Diego medical schools
The U.S. Department of Justice just launched a probe into three medical schools to determine whether they are discriminating against applicants based on their race, according to the New York Times.
The investigation involves Stanford University, Ohio State University, and the University of California, San Diego, the newspaper revealed.
“At this time, our investigation will focus on possible race discrimination in medical school admissions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote Wednesday in letters to each of the three institutions, obtained by the Times.
In the letters, Dhillon asked the schools to “turn over extensive lists of data by April 24 or risk interruptions to essential federal funding,” two unnamed officials told the newspaper:
The government is seeking information about medical school applicants from each of the past seven years, including test scores, home ZIP codes and the disclosure of any familial relationships to alumni or ties to university donors. The administration also demanded copies of any internal messages at the universities about diversity, equity and inclusion and any correspondence between school officials and pharmaceutical companies about admissions policies. …
Officials at all three universities confirmed they had been notified about the inquiries.
However, the Trump administration has not commented on the investigation yet, and a department spokesperson declined to comment when the Times asked why the investigation involves those three schools specifically.
Since President Donald Trump took office, the administration has been cracking down on racial discrimination in higher education.
In February, the Department of Education agreed to rewrite the exclusionary race-based eligibility rules of a federal PhD scholarship in response to a lawsuit filed against the program, The College Fix reported.
Last summer, the Justice Department also published a memo warning institutions that “race based scholarships,” “preferential hiring,” and other DEI initiatives are “unlawful practices,” The Fix reported.
The Trump administration also issued a federal directive last year requiring universities to disclose admissions data in an effort to shed light on the matter. However, more than a dozen states are challenging the order in a lawsuit, according to The Hill.
“Although the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students’ civil rights, the persistent lack of available data — paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies — continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice,” Trump stated last year when he introduced the directive.
“Greater transparency is essential to exposing unlawful practices and ultimately ridding society of shameful, dangerous racial hierarchies,” the president said.
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