The Trump administration is investigating allegations of racism at UC San Diego, Stanford’s medical schools
The Trump administration is investigating whether two of California’s most prestigious medical schools – UC San Diego and Stanford – have admitted racism and demanded they submit personal and academic information about their students in less than a month or face devastating state funding cuts.
In letters sent Wednesday to schools and Ohio State University, Department of Justice Assistant Atty. General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the investigation “will focus on potential racial discrimination in medical education” and said officials have until April 24 to respond to seven years of admissions data.
Information requested includes information about students’ race, their Medical College Admissions Test scores, home addresses and ZIP codes. The Department of Justice also requested information about campus diversity, equity and inclusion policies or programs and messages between schools and drug companies that affect admissions issues. A UC San Diego official, who was not authorized to speak to the media about the investigation, shared the text of the letter and data requests with The Times.
Officials at Stanford and Ohio State say they have received similar notices. On Thursday, Dhillon – the department’s top human rights officer – tweeted to X about the investigation: “We did this yesterday. Among other things!” Dhillon posted a link to the press release above.
Laura Margoni, a spokeswoman for UC San Diego, said the school is “committed to fair procedures in all of our programs and operations, including admissions, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.”
Stanford spokeswoman Cecilia Arradaza said the medical school “prohibits unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin or national origin, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.”
Ben Johnson, a spokesman for Ohio State University, said the university is in “full compliance” with state and federal laws regarding admissions. “We received the letter and we will respond accordingly,” said Johnson.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding from the National Institutes of Health may be at risk. By 2025, the NIH awarded nearly $36 billion to universities, most of it to medical school investigators. The institution distributed $575 million to Stanford, $427 million to UC San Diego and $210 million to Ohio State University.
The data requests are similar to those made by the Justice Department last month in a lawsuit against the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, which the government accuses of using a “systematic system of racial discrimination” that favors black and Latino applicants over white and Asian Americans.
The organization Do No Harm and Students for Fair Admissions, along with a white applicant who says he was rejected from the school because of his race, first brought the case in 2025 before the Trump administration got involved in the case.
In its filings, the Justice Department said it reviewed the Median Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, scores obtained at UCLA for four consecutive years beginning with the incoming class of 2021. Those scores, the government said, reflect lower averages for Black and Latino matriculates (506 to 509) compared to whites and Asian Americans (5163).
The UCLA medical school has no minimum MCAT score requirement and uses a comprehensive assessment process that considers areas outside of test scores and grades, similar to the processes at UC San Diego, Stanford and Ohio State University.
A spokeswoman for UCLA’s medical school said it is committed to a “due process” for admissions and follows state and federal anti-discrimination laws.
The latest investigation adds to a growing list of the Trump administration’s disputes with California institutions of higher education centered on allegations of student discrimination or discrimination.
In another ongoing lawsuit, California and 16 Democratic state attorneys general are fighting the Department of Education’s mandate that UC, California State University and other campuses submit seven years of detailed admissions data, including race, gender and GPA information. The Trump administration said it could use the data to determine whether there were any violations of the law on student admissions, which could lead to the schools facing fines.
That data was posted on Wednesday. But on Tuesday, the Boston-based district judge presiding over the case granted the state’s community colleges an extension on the requests while considering arguments that they could no longer ban data collection while the case is pending. US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV said he will rule on April 3.
Universities said the data requests were too difficult to produce quickly and accurately, could violate student privacy and said they were concerned that the Department of Education had followed a quick process — months instead of the usual years — to expand its data collection efforts.
In the latest action last month, the federal government sued UC for alleged “severe and widespread” discrimination in the hiring of Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA. A UCLA spokesperson responded that it “stands firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat discrimination.”
Since August, UCLA has been grappling with a $1.2-billion federal demand to end a Justice Department investigation alleging the university violated federal law by using race in admissions, recognizing transgender women as their identities and not responding adequately to complaints of alleged anti-Semitism during the 2024 Palestinian state assembly.
The federal court case largely halted fines and campus change requirements, though UC has said it is open to negotiations with the federal government and has not publicly indicated the possibility of a small settlement.
