A federal class-action lawsuit accuses UCLA’s medical faculty and numerous college officers of utilizing race as a think about admissions, regardless of a state legislation and Supreme Courtroom ruling putting down affirmative motion.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in California’s Central District federal court docket, was introduced by the activist group Do No Hurt, based in 2022 to combat affirmative motion in drugs; College students for Honest Admissions, the nonprofit that received its swimsuit on the Supreme Courtroom in opposition to Harvard’s affirmative motion program; and Kelly Mahoney, a university graduate who was rejected from UCLA’s David Geffen College of Medication.
In keeping with the lawsuit, the authorized motion was being taken to cease the medical faculty and UCLA officers from allegedly “partaking in intentional discrimination on the premise of race and ethnicity within the admissions course of.”
UCLA’s medical faculty didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Citing unnamed “whistleblowers,” the lawsuit alleges that Jennifer Lucero, the affiliate dean for admissions, “requires candidates to submit responses which might be meant to permit the Committee to glean the applicant’s race, which the medical faculty later confirms through interviews.”
It additionally alleges that Lucero and admissions committee members “routinely and overtly” mentioned race and used it as an element to make admission choices.
Lucero didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request to remark.
“Do No Hurt is preventing for all the scholars who’ve been racially discriminated in opposition to by UCLA below the guise of political progress,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Hurt, mentioned in a information launch. “All medical colleges should abide by the legislation of the land and prioritize benefit, not immutable traits, in admissions.”
The lawsuit comes as UCLA and different UC campuses are going through scrutiny by the Trump administration for potential “unlawful DEI” in admissions practices.
The Division of Justice in late March mentioned it might examine UCLA, UC Irvine, Stanford and UC Berkeley, suggesting the faculties flouted state legislation and U.S. Supreme Courtroom precedent banning the usage of race as an element when evaluating faculty candidates.
A UC spokesperson mentioned in an announcement concerning the March investigation that UC stopped utilizing race in admissions when Proposition 209 — which bans consideration of race in public training, hiring and contracting — went into impact in 1997. Since then, “UC has carried out admissions practices to adjust to the legislation.”
Individually on the time, the Division of Well being and Human Providers mentioned it was investigating an unnamed “main medical faculty in California to find out whether or not it discriminates on the premise of race, shade, or nationwide origin in its admissions. An HHS official beforehand informed The Instances that the investigation centered on the UCLA David Geffen College of Medication.
In response to that March announcement, UCLA mentioned “we might be absolutely cooperating with their investigation.”
The lawsuit Thursday alleges that Lucero and the admissions committee routinely admit Black candidates with below-average GPA and MCAT, or Medical School Admission Take a look at scores, “whereas requiring whites and Asians to have near-perfect scores to even be critically thought-about.”
In keeping with the lawsuit, Do No Hurt has a minimum of one member who utilized to Geffen, was rejected and “is ready and able to reapply if a court docket orders Defendants to cease discriminating and to undo the results of its previous discrimination.” College students for Honest Admissions has a minimum of one member who will apply to the medical faculty.
“On this race-based system,” the lawsuit alleges, “all candidates are disadvantaged of their proper to equal remedy and the chance to pursue their lifelong dream of changing into a physician due to completely arbitrary standards.”
