The Department of Justice on Wednesday filed a complaint seeking to join a lawsuit against a major medical school accused of illegally considering race in its admissions process.
A class action lawsuit filed in May 2025 by Do No Harm (DNH) accuses the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) medical school of using race as a factor in admissions “under the guise of ‘holistic’ review.” The DOJ on Wednesday filed a complaint seeking to join the suit, challenging the constitutionality of those practices and asking the court to permanently prohibit the school from “in any way” considering race in admissions decisions.
“After a long history of moving incrementally away from racial preferences in education, this Nation and its Supreme Court cast off this vestige of our troubled history surrounding race and set out to mandate colorblind admissions in all public (and publicly funded) universities,” the complaint states. “There is but one legal avenue for a public or publicly funded medical school to pursue diversity in medicine: admit the most qualified candidates regardless of race, and expect that those most qualified candidates will come from every race, because they do.”
The DOJ wrote that race-based admissions not only undermines civil rights protections, but results in lowered standards and “less well academically qualified doctors practicing medicine.” It also warned that in doing so, patients will be forced to question whether their minority doctor “is really qualified to practice medicine and can give them the same quality care as a White or Asian doctor who did not receive preferential admission to medical school.”
“This shadow follows [minority] doctors throughout their careers, whether or not that doctor needed a preference to be admitted to medical school,” the complaint reads.
DNH’s original complaint alleges that the school “requires applicants to submit responses that are intended to allow the Committee to glean the applicant’s race, which the medical school later confirms via interviews.” Behind the scenes, admissions officers “routinely and openly discuss race (and racial proxies) and use race as a factor to make admission decisions.”
Students applying to UCLA’s medical school are asked whether they “identify as being part of a group that has been marginalized” and, if so, prompted to elaborate on “how this inequity has impacted you or your community,” according to the DOJ.
“On its face and by design, this question asks Black applicants to reveal their race so that UCLA Med can know and consider it,” the complaint states.
After the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action policies in 2023, UCLA boasted of plans to skirt the ruling and continue focusing on “diversity” through alternate means. Since then, the school has seen continued increases in minority enrollment, while other schools with race-neutral policies reported declines — with Asian enrollment the notable exception.
The Trump administration in 2025 attempted to revoke $584 million in federal funds from UCLA over allegations of racial discrimination and failure to address antisemitism on campus, but a Biden-appointed federal judge in September blocked the administration from terminating the grants.
“The United States was right in its move to join this case, which is of great public importance,” DNH executive director Kristina Rasmussen said in a statement. “We look forward to the Justice Department’s additional efforts here to get to the bottom of what appears to be an effort by UCLA to continue a race-based medical school admissions process in contravention of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions.”
“The United States intervenes, because ending racial discrimination in our university systems is of general public importance,” the DOJ wrote.
A spokesman for UCLA’s medical school told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the school does not comment on pending litigation, but said it “is committed to fair processes in all of our programs and activities, including admissions, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.”
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