The Department of Justice has stepped into litigation over alleged race-based admissions at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, accusing the school of continuing policies the Supreme Court rejected and asking the court to block any race-conscious practices that it says persist.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has moved to intervene in a lawsuit that challenges admissions practices at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The case centers on allegations that the school continued to factor race into admissions decisions despite the Supreme Court ruling in SFFA v. Harvard that barred race-based preferences in higher education admissions.
The original litigation was brought by Students for Fair Admissions, the group behind the landmark 2023 Supreme Court victory that upended affirmative action across the country. That ruling removed race as a permissible consideration in university admissions, and the federal complaint now says UCLA did not fully comply.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, notes that the Geffen School gathers data on the race of its applicants and uses racial preferences to illegally balance its admissions classes by race such that they will “look like” America. The Department’s Educational Opportunities Section argues those practices amount to unlawful discrimination and seeks court intervention to stop them.
“As the Supreme Court has made clear, admission into our nation’s educational institutions cannot be based on discriminatory racial policies,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. That statement is central to the DOJ’s stance: universities must follow the Constitution and the high court’s decisions, not pursue race-conscious admissions designed to hit demographic targets.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon added forceful language when addressing the conduct the Department is confronting. “Even after the Supreme Court banned race-balancing, the Geffen School kept discriminating by using illegal DEI preferences in admissions,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “As the Supreme Court stated more than 80 years ago, a free people, founded on the doctrine of equality, regard distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry as inherently odious. This Civil Rights Division will not tolerate such conduct and welcomes the Court’s role in ensuring justice.” “
The United States’ complaint points to admissions data allegedly showing significant disparities between the academic preparation of minority applicants and non-minority applicants. DOJ attorneys argue those disparities are the predictable result of racial preferences that lower standards for some applicants, rather than admissions based on individual merit and qualifications.
This invidious racism not only violates the U.S. Constitution, but stigmatizes minority applicants as less qualified, and causes the medical school to admit applicants who are substantially less qualified to become medical doctors. The Department frames the issue as both a constitutional violation and a practical harm to the profession, saying medicine must select candidates on competence, not race.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli emphasized the legal and moral stakes from the government’s perspective. “The law is clear: Discrimination on the basis of race is illegal and immoral,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. His comments echo the DOJ’s argument that state and private educational institutions alike must adhere to the equal protection principles reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.
The intervention by the Civil Rights Division signals that the federal government will press challenges where it believes universities continue to use race as a lever in admissions. The complaint asks the court to enjoin any policies that systemically weigh race in a way that mirrors the population rather than evaluating applicants individually. The case will test how courts enforce the Supreme Court’s guidance on equal treatment in the post-SFFA era.
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