The U.S. Department of Justice has opened civil rights investigations into the medical schools at Stanford University, Ohio State University, and the University of California, San Diego, over possible racial discrimination in their admissions practices.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon sent letters to the three institutions on Wednesday, Mar. 26, demanding seven years of admissions data by Apr. 24.
The requested information includes students' race, Medical College Admission Test scores, home addresses and ZIP codes, internal DEI communications, and messages between university officials and pharmaceutical companies about admissions, according to the New York Times.
Schools that fail to comply risk losing federal funding, including hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants from the National Institutes of Health.
In 2025, the NIH awarded roughly $575 million to Stanford, $427 million to UC San Diego, and $210 million to Ohio State. Dhillon posted about the probes on X the following day, writing, "We did this yesterday. Among other things!"
All three universities confirmed they received the letters. Stanford spokesperson Cecilia Arradaza said the medical school "prohibits unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law."
UC San Diego spokesperson Laura Margoni said the school is "committed to fair processes in all of our programs and activities, including admissions, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws."
Ohio State spokesperson Ben Johnson said the university is "fully compliant" with state and federal laws and will "respond appropriately."
The investigations were not triggered by a specific complaint. Instead, the DOJ is using its broad congressional authority to proactively examine federally funded institutions for civil rights compliance. All three schools use holistic admissions processes that weigh factors beyond test scores and grades, a practice the administration has targeted.
The probes mark a major escalation in the Trump administration's effort to scrutinize how universities handle race in admissions after the Supreme Court's 2023 decision striking down affirmative action, Reuters reported.
The move follows the DOJ's recent action against the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, where the government joined a lawsuit alleging a "systemically racist approach to admissions" favoring Black and Latino applicants over white and Asian American ones.
Court filings showed median MCAT scores for admitted Black and Latino students ranged from 506 to 509, compared to 513 to 516 for white and Asian American students.
Education advocates have warned that collecting detailed admissions data could violate student privacy.
Dhillon argued in the letters that civil rights laws take precedence over privacy concerns. A separate legal challenge over similar data demands from the Department of Education is before a federal judge in Boston, with a ruling expected by Apr. 3, as per the Los Angeles Times.
Originally published on parentherald.com
