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Let's get into it:
Department of Justice Civil Rights Attorney Harmeet Dhillon said that "At Yale Medical School, a black applicant is 29 times more likely to be invited to interview than an Asian with equally strong academics." Her division recently found that UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine also discriminated against white and Asian students in admissions. If it's happening at Yale and UCLA, two prestigious medical schools on either side of the country, then it's likely happening at the majority of medical schools in the country—and it's been happening for some time.
We Americans were sold on the idea that diversity, in and of itself, for its own sake, is a strength, and will produce better outcomes. But that's just not true. Merit-based admissions produce the best outcomes, even if they don't produce the most diverse outcomes. Would you rather see a Benetton ad when you're rolled into the ER suffering a stroke or would you rather have the absolute best doctors available to treat you? For those who don't remember, here's a sample.
Even though the Supreme Court banned affirmative action, schools have kept it up, using workarounds to attain the same result of pushing more unqualified applicants to the front of the queue because admissions officials prefer the race of those applicants over the ones they leave behind. Hispanic and black applicants with lower test scores got into Yale even as their white and Asian counterparts did not.
"Yale’s documents show that its leadership intentionally selected applicants based on their race," the agency states. "Yale’s documents reveal that they studied how to use racial proxies to circumvent the Supreme Court’s prohibition on using race to select students. Yale’s admissions data demonstrate that Black and Hispanic students have a much higher chance of admission to Yale than White or Asian students with the same test scores."
Dhillon said: "Yale has continued its race-based admissions program despite the Supreme Court and the public’s clear mandate for reform. This Department will continue to shed light on these illegal practices, and demand that institutions of higher education comply with federal law."
So what's the problem? I'm not in favor of affirmative action at any university or institution, but in the case of medical schools, the practice is perilous. A finding in 2024 discovered that prioritizing diversity over merit resulted in "unqualified" graduates, students who could not pass medical exams to become doctors even after the school's rigorous academic programs. UCLA was called a "failed medical school" by members of the admissions staff.
This isn't about diversity, it's about American healthcare, which has been a gold standard globally, with people bringing their toughest cases to the US for treatment. When my son was in need of serious, terrifying surgery during his first year of life, I was able to access the best, worldwide, medical care here in the US. Putting diversity metrics over Americans' healthcare is unacceptable, and I hope that Dhillon's efforts put a stop to it. I know she's trying.
Libby