DOJ Accuses UCSD Med School of 'Shadow Review' Discriminating Against White and Asian Applicants
The Trump administration's Department of Justice alleges UC San Diego School of Medicine operated a covert 'shadow' review process that systematically downgraded White and Asian applicants to increase admissions of underrepresented minorities, extending the federal crackdown on race-conscious admissions beyond formal holistic review.
The Department of Justice has escalated its campaign against race-conscious admissions by alleging that UC San Diego School of Medicine used a secret 'shadow' review system to illegally discriminate against White and Asian students. According to the DOJ's complaint, the school's admissions committee maintained a hidden process where certain applications were flagged during a secondary review, resulting in lower scores for White and Asian candidates while boosting offers to Black and Hispanic applicants. This charge goes beyond earlier findings about explicit race-based criteria—it portrays a systematic, covert scheme to circumvent the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling against affirmative action.
The humanitarian alternative
Instead of banning race-conscious holistic review, federal policy should fund and incentivize race-neutral alternatives that produce comparable diversity, such as percentage plans (admitting top students from every California high school), socioeconomic preference, and targeted pipeline programs that recruit and support underrepresented minority applicants from undergraduate through medical training. The DOJ should shift from compliance-driven punishment to technical assistance grants that help medical schools design constitutionally permissible pathways to a diverse physician workforce, while Congress should double Title VII health professions training funds to support these efforts. Such an approach would respect the Supreme Court's ruling without sacrificing the public health imperative of a representative medical profession.
Falsifiable predictions
What this entry claims will happen, and what data would prove it wrong. The Reckoner revisits these against current reality.
- A federal court will issue an injunction within 12 months barring UCSD from using any race-conscious admissions criteria, including holistic review that produces racial disparities.
- Black and Hispanic enrollment at UCSD School of Medicine will drop by at least 30% in the first admissions cycle after a race-neutral mandate takes effect.
Original source — excerpted
news Discriminatory 'shadow' review process locks White, Asian students out of California med school, DOJ alleges"NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! The Trump administration has accused UC San Diego's medical school of illegally discriminating against White and A..."