The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced today that it opened fifteen new investigations into potential race discrimination in medical school admissions. The Division recently announced its findings that the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and Yale University both illegally used race in medical school admissions.“Many of America’s top medical schools appear more concerned about the demographics of their incoming classes than training students to succeed in the profession,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Under this Justice Department, we will continue to protect American students from discriminatory and illegal preferences in admissions — especially in professions as critical as medicine, where quality of training should be the top priority.” The Division opened the investigations to enforce compliance with federal law and ensure the students become doctors based on their merit, not their race.

Each of the fifteen schools under investigation receives millions of dollars in federal taxpayer funding. The investigations will examine whether these medical schools follow Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College.The Civil Rights Division has not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of the investigations.