Yale 'intentionally discriminates' against white, Asian med school applicants: DOJ

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." The department found that Yale intended to discriminate against applicants "despite the Harvard ruling" that banned this practice.

Politicians have told Americans for years that diversity is a strength in its own right, that policies that achieve a diverse outcome are necessarily better than policies that don't. In 2024, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action at universities, finding that it discriminated against white and Asian applicants, then-President Joe Biden spoke out in favor of the practice.

After the Supreme Court ruling, he said "I know today's court decision is a severe disappointment to so many people, including me. But we cannot let the decision be a permanent setback for the country. We need to keep an open door of opportunities. We need to remember that diversity is our strength. We need to find a way forward. We need to remember that the promise of America is big enough for everyone to succeed. That's the work of my administration."

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 believe having a diverse pool of students is more important than having a qualified student body. 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 Department of Justice 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."

Dhillon's division recently found that UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine also discriminated against white and Asian students in admissions. A finding in 2024 discovered that prioritizing diversity over merit resulted in "unqualified" graduates at UCLA, 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.

In their finding, the DOJ said that Yale was in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it employed the practice of "discriminating on the basis of race in the incoming class of 2023, 2024, and 2025. Based on its review of Yale's documents and data, the Department finds that Yale continues to intentionally discriminate against applicants based on their race after the Supreme Court's decision in Harvard by granting and denying admission on the basis of race."

DOJ finds Yale medical school discriminates against white, Asian students by The Post Millennial