Race-Based Admissions
Justice Department accuses UC Davis Medical School of race-based admissions to bypass affirmative action ban.
The Justice Department has accused UC Davis Medical School of discriminating based on race in its admissions process, concluding a six-month investigation on June 10, 2026. The DOJ found that the school used a scoring tool called the "Davis Scale" as a racial proxy to get around a 2023 Supreme Court ban on race-based admissions, according to CBS News.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the school showed "unabashed contempt for the rule of law." UC Davis is now one of roughly 30 medical schools under active federal scrutiny. If settlement talks fail, the DOJ says it will file a formal lawsuit.
How the Davis Scale Worked as a Racial Workaround
The Davis Scale ranks applicants from 0 to 99 using 8 socioeconomic factors — including parental income, parental education, and whether the applicant grew up in a medically underserved area. UC Davis then used those scores to adjust each applicant's GPA and MCAT scores up or down. According to The Los Angeles Times, the DOJ says the factors were deliberately chosen and weighted to produce a specific racial outcome.
UC Davis became the third most racially diverse medical school in the country by 2024, trailing only historically Black colleges and universities, according to The Sacramento Bee. The DOJ says that result was engineered. Internal documents, it alleges, show the scale was not a neutral measure of hardship — it was a substitute for race on paper applications.
School's Own Dean May Have Provided the Smoking Gun
Dr. Mark Henderson, UC Davis's Associate Dean of Admissions, previously told The New York Times and STAT News that the school's focus on socioeconomic status was a way to "skirt the issue" of the race-conscious admissions ban. He called it "class-based affirmative action." Those public statements now appear central to the DOJ's case.
Legal experts say the admissions dean's own words may have handed prosecutors the clearest evidence of intent. Schools can legally consider how race shaped an applicant's life experience under the 2023 Supreme Court ruling. But the DOJ argues UC Davis crossed that line by systematically engineering racial outcomes across its entire applicant pool.
The Numbers the DOJ Says Tell the Story
The DOJ's findings letter showed that 93% of white and certain Asian applicants who were admitted had MCAT scores at or above the average score of Black admittees. Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted at rates up to six times higher than white and Asian applicants with similar or higher academic qualifications, according to CBS News.
UC Davis strongly rejected the findings. A school spokesperson said its admissions process is "rigorous, individualized, and merit-based" and denied that any practice was discriminatory. Supporters of the scale argue it finds strong candidates who achieved high grades despite significant obstacles — and that those doctors are best suited to serve California's diverse patient population.
Funding Cuts and a Nationwide Crackdown Loom Large
UC Davis is not alone. The DOJ announced findings against UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and Yale School of Medicine on May 6, 2026. On June 4, Assistant Attorney General Dhillon expanded probes to 15 more schools, bringing the total under active investigation to about 30, according to Reuters.
Each of the 30 schools under scrutiny receives millions in federal funding, much of it through NIH grants. A formal finding of non-compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act could trigger the loss of that funding. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli called the admissions practices "abhorrent to our Constitution" and part of a "pattern of illegal and odious conduct."
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