Department Of Justice Backs Lawsuit Against UCLA Medical School’s Race-Based Admissions; UCLA Dean Draws Trump Admin’s Ire After Allegedly Favoring Black and Asian Applicants Over White Students

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Department Of Justice Backs Lawsuit Against UCLA Medical School’s Race-Based Admissions:

The Trump administration has thrown its weight behind a lawsuit against the medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) over allegedly using race to choose its students.

Led by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, the U.S. Department of Justice filed to intervene this week.

“After a long history of moving incrementally away from racial preferences in education, this Nation and its Supreme Court cast off this vestige of our troubled history surrounding race and set out to mandate colorblind admissions in all public (and publicly funded) universities,” the Justice Department’s intervening lawsuit states. “Nevertheless, UCLA Med’s Associate Dean for Admissions, Jennifer Lucero, boldly states on her official profile that ‘she takes a special interest in diversity issues in medicine.'”

“There is but one legal avenue for a public or publicly funded medical school to pursue diversity in medicine: admit the most qualified candidates regardless of race, and expect that those most qualified candidates will come from every race, because they do,” it added.

Do No Harm (DNH), a medical advocacy group, filed the lawsuit in May, as The Federalist reported, along with Students for Fair Admissions — the same group behind the U.S. Supreme Court Case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), where the high court overturned affirmative action and ruled race-based admissions schemes unconstitutional.

The lawsuit has massive implications for the medical profession, as schools are attempting to find every way to undermine the most qualified applicants to fulfill some kind of ideological fealty to race-consciousness. As the Justice Department pointed out, racialized admissions in medicine will invariably have the adverse effect of forcing patients to justifiably wonder if their non-white doctor “is really qualified to practice medicine and can give them the same quality care as a White or Asian doctor who did not receive preferential admission to medical school.” --->READ MORE HERE

UCLA dean draws Trump admin’s ire after allegedly favoring black and Asian applicants over white students

Dr. Jennifer Lucero arrived at UCLA’s medical school as an expert on diversity, equity and inclusion after her time practicing woke medicine in San Francisco.

But now she’s coming into the Trump administration’s DEI crosshairs.

Federal prosecutors announced this week they’re seeking to join a lawsuit that accuses UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine and Lucero of engaging in “racial balancing” and “intentional discrimination” in favor of black applicants over white and Asian students.

Under Lucero’s watch starting in 2020, UCLA allegedly overlooked lower test scores for black applicants by using a “holistic” approach that allowed candidates to introduce their race into test responses.

Lucero allegedly “handpicked” committee members in charge of admissions to prioritize race and “berates and belittles” those who raise concerns about admitting minority students despite low grade-point averages and test scores.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi called the Department of Justice’s intervention in the UCLA lawsuit and escalating war over racial bias in higher education an “effort to hold our universities accountable for unlawful policy — especially in the state of California.”

The lawsuit argues that UCLA’s “Anti-Racism Roadmap” has ironically rigged the scales to prevent applicants from competing on an equal footing. It also claims whistleblowers with first-hand knowledge of Lucero’s admissions practices have come forward with stunning allegations.

“They report that, under the guise of ‘holistic’ review, Geffen requires applicants to submit responses that are intended to allow the Committee to glean the applicant’s race, which the medical school later confirms via interviews,” the lawsuit claims.

Between 2020 and 2023, the racial composition of students admitted to UCLA’s medical school shifted sharply, according to the lawsuit. White and Asian applicants consistently made up about 73% of the applicant pool, yet their share of admission fell sharply from 65.7% to 53.7% over those four years. Meanwhile, black applicants made up between 7-8% of applicants during this time as they’re admission rates rose from 8% to 14.29%. --->READ MORE HERE

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