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UNM medical school is ‘using soft factors and personality scores’ to achieve ‘preferred demographics,’ Liberty Justice Center attorney alleges
A federal court heard arguments last week over a motion by the University of New Mexico to dismiss a case alleging discrimination on the basis of race in its medical school admission process.
Michael Jakiche filed a lawsuit last October alleging he was denied admission to the University of New Mexico Medical School on the basis of his race, despite having a GPA and an MCAT score that were significantly above the median for admitted students, The College Fix previously reported.
Jakiche, the son of Syrian immigrants, identified as “white” when asked about his race on the medical school application; he applied three times and was rejected in 2023, 2024, and 2025, according to the lawsuit.
Attorneys for the UNM Board of Regents argued that the lawsuit fails to establish enough evidence to support the allegations and should be dismissed during a hearing May 13.
In a memorandum, the attorneys claimed that UNM’s use of the term “diversity” as a basis for selection “is not referenced in relation to any protected class or category” and the allegations are “speculative.”
They also claimed that Jakiche was denied admission, despite his good academic record, because he failed to communicate why he wanted to be a physician and “displayed a limited knowledge of New Mexico’s health care landscape.”
However, Reilly Stephens, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing Jakiche, told The Fix in a recent phone interview that “diversity is the longstanding euphemism for the kind of issue we’re talking about.”
Stephens compared the university’s arguments to a case that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on in 2023 in which Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard University for racial discrimination against Asian student applicants.
“In the Harvard case, this was the same argument,” Stephens said. “The argument Harvard made was, ‘We’re not discriminating against people being Asian; we’re just discriminating against people with lower personality scores.’”
“Our submission is that there are plenty of bases here for us to allege – and we think we can prove – that this is the same thing here: the same kind of using soft factors and personality scores and essays and this kind of thing to massage the demographics of the student body to your preferred demographics,” he told The Fix.
Stephens said cases such as this one can be “tricky” if universities “come up with various pretexts to do the things they want to do.” However, he added that the Supreme Court precedent barring race-based admissions practices “is very clear.”
“If universities around the country are trying all sorts of tricks to try and minimize the effect of that, we think it is incumbent on our public institutions, on our courts and on our universities to recognize that the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race,” he said.
In its recent court filing, the University of New Mexico argued that schools should be granted deference when it comes to admissions decisions, especially within the medical field.
Responding, Stephens told The Fix that he doesn’t “think there should be deference about constitutional rights and discrimination.”
Although courts have granted deference to universities over some admissions decisions, that deference is limited, he said.
“If you want to have mostly science kids or mostly humanities kids or if you want to have athletes or whatever, courts have said we’re not going to send judgement on that within certain bounds. But the clear bound that the Supreme Court set in the Harvard case was the question of racial discrimination,” Stephens said.
These discriminatory policies must be “left in the dustbin,” Stephens said.
The Fix also contacted the university’s attorneys via email, but they did not respond to two requests for comment on the lawsuit in recent weeks. The university’s media relations office declined to comment.
Previously, in a statement to The Fix regarding the lawsuit, the university stated: “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.”
MORE: Student accuses U. New Mexico of race-based admissions in new lawsuit
