Trump administration accuses UC Davis medical school of racial discrimination in admissions

Tarini Mehta, The Sacramento Bee on Jun 10, 2026

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Following a six-month investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday that it had determined that the UC Davis School of Medicine discriminated based on race in its admissions process. The school disagreed with the findings about its “rigorous, individualized, and merit-based” admissions process and said it remains committed to complying with federal and state antidiscrimination laws.

Against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices in higher education, the Department of Justice’s civil rights division has opened investigations into “potential race discrimination” in admissions at several institutions across the country, including 15 unnamed medical schools last week. In May, it announced it had found evidence of such discrimination at the UCLA and Yale medical schools.

“Davis Med’s actions reflect both unabashed contempt for the rule of law and plain disregard for the potential public health consequences of putting race over merit, skill, and competence,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement Wednesday. “The Department will not allow schools to violate federal law without consequence.”

The department’s statement said the UC Davis School of Medicine, which is based in Sacramento, had adopted admissions practices to circumvent the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard which held that race-conscious admissions programs implemented by the school violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

It said the school’s leadership had “openly boasted about skirting” the Supreme Court’s ruling by using class-based socioeconomic variables like family income and parental education as proxies for race. The school created the “Davis Scale,” it said, with the goal of admitting more “underrepresented minorities.” The scale ranked applicants based on “disadvantages” while adjusting the impact of their GPA or Medical College Admission Test scores, the department said.

Per its review of the Davis medical school’s admissions data, the federal department said it found that white and Asian students admitted to the school had higher average GPA and MCAT scores than Black students in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

As a result of its policies, the UC Davis School of Medicine became the third most racially diverse medical school in the country in 2024, behind only historically black universities, the statement said. To prove evidence of the “intent to discriminate,” the Department of Justice included in its findings a 2023 social media post by UC Davis Chancellor Gray May in which he wrote, “Diversity saves lives.”

Med school cultivated, celebrated its diversity

In a 2024 article, the school drew attention to its efforts to make the student body more representative of California’s diverse population. It said it had done so in accordance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling and the state’s ban on affirmative action. The school’s goal, it said, was to graduate doctors to meet the needs of California’s diverse patient population, many of whom experience better outcomes when treated by a provider from their own cultural background per studies. To do so, the school recruited students from underserved areas, bolstered scholarship support and used the Davis Scale.

Responding to the federal department’s report Wednesday, a UC Davis spokesperson said the school was disappointed by its conclusions.

“UC Davis School of Medicine strongly disagrees with any characterization of its admissions practices as discriminatory or inconsistent with applicable law,” the UC Davis spokesperson said. “The report’s findings do not accurately reflect the school’s rigorous, individualized, and merit-based admissions process and our firm commitment to complying with applicable federal and state antidiscrimination laws.”

Further, the school said it was committed to meeting the critical healthcare needs of California, particularly those in underserved and under-resourced areas.

The Department of Justice will now engage in settlement negotiations with UC Davis School of Medicine. If that fails, there will be a lawsuit, it warned. Meanwhile, it will continue to “monitor and ensure compliance with federal law” at medical schools across the country that receive substantial federal financial assistance, the department said.

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