DOJ Finds Yale Medical School Discriminates Against White and Asian Applicants
Admissions staff at Yale University’s medical school “used racial proxies” and “intentionally selected applicants based on their race” to the benefit of black and Hispanic students, despite a Supreme Court ruling that affirmative action is illegal, according to a new report from the Department of Justice.
“Yale uses its holistic-review procedure to uncover and then use applicants’ race through direct and indirect means,” says a letter from the DOJ, which conducted a year-long investigation into the school. “It then conducts interviews that enable the committee to know applicants’ race and ethnicity. Race preferences elevate Black and Hispanic applicants in the admissions process.”
The benefit given to some minority applicants is significant. “Based on our preliminary review of the applicant-level data, Yale’s use of race resulted in a Black applicant being as much as 29 times higher odds of getting an interview for admission than an equally strong Asian applicant with similar academic credentials,” the DOJ states in a letter.
According to the DOJ, Yale University updated a presentation in 2024 to include a slide that states only “Admissions post-SCOTUS,” which suggests admissions staff were given verbal instructions “encouraging the use of race/ethnicity in admissions.” Yale supplied redacted documents to the DOJ that were updated after the Supreme Court decision against Harvard, including one titled “Guidance on Consideration of Race Updated 8.15.25.”
A Yale Admissions Cycle Committee Retreat 2025 included a presentation titled “Race-Neutral Admissions: Examples from Literature,” which contained a lengthy discussion on increasing the number of “Minority Physicians.” The DOJ says the presentation “promulgates stereotypes” about these individuals to use as racial proxies for identifying minority applicants and increasing their representation in the student class.
The DOJ investigation found that the medical school’s orientation instructional packet for admissions staff included a graphic developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which includes “race” and “national origin” as traits to be considered in a holistic applicant assessment. That same graphic was used by UCLA’s medical school in guidance documents for its admissions team, as seen in documents released by DOJ last week regarding its investigation into UCLA.
According to admissions data for the students who entered Yale’s medical school in 2025, white and Asian students had a median MCAT score in the 100th percentile, whereas the Hispanic students were in the 94th percentile and the black students were in the 95th percentile. White students in that class had a median GPA of 3.97 and Asian students had a median GPA of 3.98, whereas Hispanic students had a median GPA of 3.91 and black students had a median GPA of 3.88.
The DOJ argues that these figures show “virtually no difference” to those from before the Supreme Court’s ruling against Harvard, and the lack of change suggests Yale showed “a willful failure to comply with that decision.”
The DOJ seeks to enter a voluntary agreement with Yale University to ensure the school’s admissions practices are compliant with the law.
“Yale has continued its race-based admissions program despite the Supreme Court and the public’s clear mandate for reform,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release on Thursday. “This Department will continue to shed light on these illegal practices, and demand that institutions of higher education comply with federal law.”
Last week, the DOJ concluded its investigation into the admissions practices at UCLA’s medical school and found that black and Hispanic students with “significantly lower median” MCAT and GPAs are admitted. Data from the 2024 incoming class showed that Hispanic students had a median GPA of 3.56 and black students had a median GPA of 3.72, whereas the median GPA of white and Asian students was 3.83 and 3.84, respectively.
“Unfortunately, once-respectable institutions believe they can violate antidiscrimination laws with impunity, while the victims — rather than the perpetrators — are branded as reprehensible ‘racists’ for acknowledging such practices,” National Review said in an editorial about the findings of the investigation into UCLA. “Thankfully, the Trump administration is taking forceful action to expose and punish this egregious violation of our laws and principles.”