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Admitting medical students based on race ‘risks long-term harm to patients as well as the integrity of the profession’, doctor tells The College Fix
The U.S. Supreme Court has been “clear that Title VI and the Constitution do not allow the use of racial preferences … or the use of a stand-in for racial preferences,” attorney Reilly Stephens told The College Fix regarding a new discrimination lawsuit against the University of New Mexico.
Stephens is a senior counsel for the Liberty Justice Center, which filed the claim against the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. It alleges that the public institution engaged in race-based admissions decisions in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint claims that Michael Jakiche, the son of Syrian immigrants, was denied admission across two application cycles despite outstanding academic achievement, including an MCAT score in the 96th percentile and a 3.99 GPA, which is noticeably above the average for accepted applicants of 3.75.
It alleges that UNM sent Jakiche a post-application advisement summary that stated, “Applicants are ranked with respect to each other according to their individual qualities as well as on the experiences and diversity that they will contribute to the entering class.”
The UNM Health Sciences website also emphasizes diversity, stating that, “Our mission is to advance diversity, equity and inclusivity for all throughout New Mexico’s Health Science institutions and the communities they serve.”
When contacted via email, the university media relations office declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said UNM follows the law.
“UNM follows all state and federal anti-discrimination laws. In accordance with federal law, the UNM School of Medicine does not use race or gender as criteria for admission,” the university stated.
Stephens told The Fix in a recent phone interview that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard made clear that race may not be used as a factor in admissions decisions.
“The fact that it’s not necessarily an explicit racial preference—that in and of itself doesn’t save them, because you go back to the Harvard case—what went into the Harvard case?” he said. “Well, they were discriminating against Asians, and how were they discriminating? They gave them a lower personality score.”
“That is more or less exactly the situation that Michael found himself in here. His academic credentials were wonderful and he still couldn’t get in and he didn’t do well enough on their soft factors,” Stephens said.
He told The Fix, “We’re trying to show what we think is a quite obvious intent and a quite obvious pattern and practice here.”
“The main part of the issue is that schools need to run their admissions on a nondiscriminatory basis and so, to the extent that the university still uses these factors, or uses a proxy for these factors, or attempts to MacGyver a new version of what the Supreme Court said was illegal, we think that new version is illegal too,” Stephens said.
Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director of Do No Harm, a nonprofit organization that aims to remove “identity politics” from the medical field, told The Fix that racial discrimination is still a problem in the country’s medical schools.
“While there has been some progress in restoring integrity within medical schools following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, we have yet to see a complete end to racial favoritism in the admission process,” he said via email.
Miceli said one of the problems is that institutions simply “rebrand and repackage divisive DEI initiatives,” which he called “unacceptable.”
“The fight for excellence in the training of future medical professionals is essential to ensuring high-quality patient care. Schools that persist in promoting racial favoritism under new labels are not deceiving anyone,” he told The Fix.
“Diversity requirements that prioritize identity over merit have no place in medical schools … We should not allow biased admissions practices to politicize a field that must remain rooted in objectivity, excellence, and a commitment to patient care—doing so risks long-term harm to patients as well as the integrity of the profession,” Miceli said.
Stephens also expressed his belief that despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, racially discriminatory admissions practices are still widespread.
“I think that there is a faction of people, and that they are very well-represented in university administrations, who really, passionately believe in affirmative action, and really, passionately believe in using race to undo the vestiges of past discrimination,” he told The Fix.
He continued, “It’s a cause that they believe in, so just because the Supreme Court told them they can’t do it … they still have to be reminded of it because they really, really, really believe in discriminating on the basis of race.”
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