Skirting SCOTUS Part III: How Medical Schools Continue to Practice Racially Conscious Admissions

In recent decades, many universities openly engaged in racially conscious admissions. Most medical schools eagerly seized upon the opportunity, in effect creating admissions standards that were vastly different according to the race of the applicant. Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard that racially discriminatory admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Immediate responses to the Supreme Court’s decision from the medical establishment portended defiance rather than compliance. As Do No Harm detailed in Skirting SCOTUS Part I, responses from medical schools and medical organizations signaled displeasure and a continued fixation on the racial composition of the physician workforce. In a followup report (Skirting SCOTUS Part II) we observed suggestive evidence that schools had devised workarounds to maintain a racially biased admissions system. Specifically, we observed that, at many medical schools, the racial composition of students admitted after SFFA looked like the composition before that decision. That outcome is nearly impossible to reconcile with the implementation of a racially neutral admissions regime given the well-documented penalties and bonuses that were handed out to medical school applicants on the basis of race prior to SFFA.

Continue reading the full report below.