UCLA Medical School and Racial Bias

Racial preferences in university admissions ended in 2023, or did they? A lawsuit in federal court against the University of California Geffen Medical School is worth watching as an example of how schools are complying with the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

Late last week the groups Students for Fair Admissions and Do No Harm sued UCLA Geffen for bias in admissions. The class-action lawsuit, which is brought on behalf of students denied admission since 2020, says UCLA used different academic standards for applicants of different races to achieve racially balanced student classes.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in Students for Fair Admissions cited a study that found black newborns were more likely to survive if they were cared for by a black doctor. But once the newborns were grouped by birth weight, a key indicator of neo-natal risk, the discrepancy disappeared, according to Do No Harm and a Manhattan Institute analysis of the study.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.