Press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (June 10, 2026):
“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced today that it determined the University of California, Davis School of Medicine (Davis Med), discriminates based on race in its admissions process, violating the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA). . . .
The Department’s investigation found that Davis Med adopted admissions practices with the express purpose of circumventing the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA, which banned affirmative action in higher education admissions. Documents provided by Davis Med show that its leadership openly boasted about skirting' the Supreme Court’s ruling by using certain class-based socioeconomic variables' or disadvantages' as proxies for race (e.g., family income, parental education, or being from an underserved area'). To admit more so-called `underrepresented minorities,' Davis Med created the `Davis Scale,' which ranks an applicant based upon perceived `disadvantages’ while strategically adjusting the impact of his or her GPA and MCAT scores. The result: in 2024, Davis Med became the third most racially diverse medical school in the country, behind only historically black universities.”
The UC Davis School of Medicine has denied the charges of discrimination. A previous admissions scheme, a quota system, was invalidated in 1977 in the famous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Race-conscious admissions systems have been prohibited in California since 1996 when voters passed Proposition 209. Since then, UC Davis School of Medicine has worked to ensure a diverse class consistent with the law. Announcements like the Justice Department’s may chill universities, including law schools, from taking lawful steps to secure diverse student bodies. All-white student bodies will not likely attract the attention of the Trump administration.
