DOJ says Yale med discriminated against Asian, white applicants

The Justice Department has accused Yale’s medical school of illegally considering race in its admissions decisions, the second medical school finding the agency has issued in eight days.

A year-long probe by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division concluded Thursday that Yale “continues to intentionally discriminate against applicants based on their race” by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over white and Asian applicants, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Investigators said internal documents showed that Yale searched for indirect methods to factor race into admissions following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and that its holistic review process allowed admissions staff to determine applicants’ race directly and by inference.

In a letter to the university, Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon said a preliminary review of admissions data found that a Black applicant with similar academic credentials to an Asian peer had up to 29 times higher odds of securing an interview. The DOJ also cited GPA and MCAT figures from the 2023, 2024 and 2025 entering classes showing that Asian and white admits had stronger scores on average than Black and Hispanic admits.

In response, Yale said its admitted students “demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and personal commitment,” adding that its graduates pursue careers in clinical care, research and public service. The university said it is confident in its admissions process and will carefully review the department’s letter.

The DOJ is seeking a voluntary resolution agreement but may pursue enforcement in court if Yale does not comply, Dhillon said. She wrote that the lack of change in admissions outcomes after the 2023 ruling demonstrated “a willful failure to comply with that decision,” pointing to Yale’s amicus brief in the SFFA case, in which the school argued that diverse classes required explicit racial consideration.

The Yale finding extends a Trump administration effort that has reoriented federal civil rights enforcement around alleged discrimination against white and Asian applicants. Investigations are now underway at the medical schools of Stanford, Ohio State and the University of California, San Diego, and the DOJ issued a similar finding against UCLA’s medical school the week before.

Asian American applicants are central to how the 2023 ruling plays out in graduate and professional education. As we previously reported, Asian American enrollment has diverged sharply across elite schools since the ruling, climbing from 25.6% to 45.1% at Johns Hopkins between 2023 and 2025 while declining at Duke, Princeton and Yale.