The Department of Justice said on Wednesday that an investigation into the University of California, Los Angeles medical school found that the school’s admissions process unlawfully discriminates based on race.
The announcement came as the department released the results of a yearlong probe sparked by a Washington Free Beacon report based on whistleblower accounts. The whistleblowers said the admissions committee was engaged in egregious race discrimination and that concerns about its practices had been raised internally—and systematically ignored.
“We want racial diversity so badly, we’re willing to cut corners to get it,” a former member of the admissions staff told the Free Beacon at the time.
The Justice Department probe uncovered additional evidence of unlawful discrimination, including emails between administrators who brainstormed ways to get around the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down affirmative action in higher education.
“UCLA’s admissions process has been focused on racial demographics at the expense of merit and excellence — allowing racial politics to distract the school from the vital work of training great doctors,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a press release. “Racism in admissions is both illegal and anti-American, and this Department will not allow it to continue.”
UCLA told the Free Beacon in a statement that the medical school’s admissions process “is based on merit and grounded in a rigorous, comprehensive review of each applicant.”
“We are carefully reviewing the Department of Justice’s report,” the school added. “The David Geffen School of Medicine is committed to providing equal opportunity to all applicants and fully complying with federal and state laws.”
Wednesday’s finding from the Justice Department cites a 2025 guidance document used by the school’s admissions committee, which lists “race,” “relationship status,” and “sexual orientation” as factors in the admissions process. The department also notes that UCLA asks applicants whether they identify as part of a “marginalized group.” And it describes an email from the medical school’s director of admissions, Alisa Lopez, that “outlines workarounds to achieve … ‘diversity goals.'”
Lopez allegedly sent the email to Jennifer Lucero, the associate dean of admissions, who at one point made the admissions committee sit through a two-hour lecture by her sister on the importance of Native American history. The Justice Department cites that incident, first reported by the Free Beacon, as an example of the “intimidation and shaming tactics” used to “pressure the admissions committee to unlawfully consider race in their decisions.”
Those findings substantiate the Free Beacon‘s 2024 report, which was based on whistleblower testimony alleging that admissions officers were lowering standards for black and Hispanic applicants. The result, as one former admissions official put it, was a “failed medical school” in which many students struggled to identify arteries or perform simple lab tests. The anecdotes were consistent with data from the class of 2025 showing that nearly a fourth of students had failed three or more standardized tests.
In addition to the Justice Department investigation, the story triggered an investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services and a lawsuit by Students for Fair Admissions, which the Justice Department joined in January. In its complaint joining the lawsuit, the Justice Department published data showing stark disparities in the MCAT scores of Asian and Hispanic students.
“The Department believes that this discrimination is ongoing,” the department wrote in a letter to UCLA. “This discrimination is apparent from the documents expressing an intent to discriminate, plus the significant disparity in objective academic metrics between Black and Hispanic applicants compared with applicants from other racial categories.”
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