The Justice Department concluded that Yale University’s School of Medicine continued to use race in admissions after the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), putting one of the country’s most selective medical school under federal civil rights enforcement.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said in a May 14 letter (PDF File) to Yale that the school “continues to intentionally discriminate against applicants based on their race” in the incoming classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 — meaning the alleged conduct spans both before and after the SFFA decision.
The findings came from a year-long Title VI compliance review opened in April 2025. DOJ said internal Yale documents showed admissions personnel were trained on race-conscious selection even after SFFA, including a 2024 admissions slide labeled only “Admissions post-SCOTUS” and a 2025 committee retreat presentation titled “Race-Neutral Admissions: Examples from Literature” that DOJ said laid out how to use racial proxies to maintain prior
By The Numbers
For the 2025 incoming MD class, DOJ said median admitted MCAT scores were:
- Black: 518 (95th percentile)
- Hispanic: 517 (94th percentile)
- White: 524 (100th percentile)
- Asian: 524 (100th percentile)
DOJ also said its preliminary statistical review found Black applicants had up to 29 times higher odds of receiving an interview than Asian applicants with similar credentials. Yale’s acceptance rate for the MD class of 2028 was 4.9%, per university data.
Between The Lines: DOJ pointed to a Yale committee presentation that examined how the University of California, Davis adjusted its socioeconomic advantage formula to lift “Underrepresented in Medicine” admittance from 10.7% to 22.7%, and said “the numerical data indicate that Yale took a similar approach” — a roadmap for race-neutral language producing race-based outcomes, per the letter.
Context: The action lands one week after DOJ levied similar accusations against UCLA’s medical school, and follows March probes into Ohio State, Stanford, and UC San Diego medical schools. DOJ identified $842,078 in direct grant funding it currently provides Yale and is seeking a voluntary resolution agreement, and failing that, the agency can move to compel compliance.
How This Connects: Medical school sits at the high end of professional education costs, with the average physician carrying roughly $202,000 in student loan debt at graduation.
Federal enforcement that reshapes how medical schools admit students (whether through stricter race-neutral standards or new socioeconomic adjustments) directly affects which applicants gain access to programs where tuition, student debt loads, and post-graduate earnings all run at the top of higher education.
Yale said it would review the DOJ letter. If the school does not enter a voluntary resolution, DOJ can take the matter to court. More medical school findings are expected as the Trump administration’s Title VI enforcement campaign continues.
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