Justice Department Says UCLA Medical School Violated Civil Rights Act in Admissions

Federal investigators said UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating on the basis of race in the incoming classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025, setting up one of the first major enforcement fights in the post-affirmative-action era.

The Justice Department said its year-long compliance review, launched by a May 9, 2025 inquiry letter and followed by a supplemental request for information on September 16, 2025, found that admitted Black and Hispanic applicants had lower academic qualifications on average than white and Asian applicants. The department said the medical school receives direct federal financial assistance, and it is seeking a voluntary resolution agreement before pursuing possible legal action.

UCLA pushed back, saying its admissions process is based on merit and built on a rigorous, comprehensive review of each applicant. The school said it is reviewing the Justice Department’s findings.

The dispute lands squarely in the legal space opened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which barred race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities. In January 2026, the Justice Department had already intervened in a private lawsuit accusing UCLA of continuing to use race in admissions after that ruling. That earlier filing said the medical school collected applicants’ race data and used racial preferences to shape classes so they would “look like” America.

The new findings place the burden on federal lawyers to show that the school’s admissions decisions crossed the line from holistic review into unlawful discrimination. That distinction will matter far beyond Westwood, because medical schools nationwide have been trying to redefine selection standards after the Supreme Court’s ruling without triggering civil-rights liability.

The UCLA case also comes against a broader backdrop of pressure on selective medical programs. The Justice Department’s review is separate from its investigations into allegations involving Jewish and Israeli students and employment discrimination at UCLA. And it arrives as the Trump administration has widened scrutiny of admissions policies at Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine and other medical schools.

The policy stakes are sharpened by UCLA’s own earlier research. A 2022 UCLA-led study found that affirmative-action bans had a “devastating impact” on diversity in public medical schools, with underrepresented students’ share of enrollment falling 37% five years after bans took effect. California’s ban on affirmative action dates to 1996, making the state a long-running test case for how race-neutral admissions rules reshape the pipeline into medicine.

For federal authorities, the UCLA case is now a test of enforcement. For medical schools, it is a warning that claims of merit will be measured not just by policy language, but by the data behind each incoming class.