DOJ Joins Lawsuit Accusing UCLA Med School of Unlawful Race-Based Admissions
31st January 2026
The Justice Department is joining a lawsuit against the University of California, Los Angeles medical school for alleged race-based admissions that it says violate a Supreme Court ruling.
Last May, student groups sued the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA regarding the continued use of race in admission practices, despite a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that barred universities from using race as a factor in admissions decisions.
Plaintiffs who brought the initial case included Students for Fair Admissions, which previously sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina in cases that were decided by the high court. The other plaintiff is Do No Harm. Both groups represent students denied admission into the UCLA medical school.
“Even after the Supreme Court banned race-balancing, the Geffen School kept discriminating by using illegal DEI preferences in admissions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a public statement Thursday.