HHS Opens Probe Into Calif. Med School; Reportedly UCLA

The Trump administration announced Thursday that it has opened an investigation into a "major medical school in California" for discriminatory raced-based admissions, with the Washington Free Beacon reporting the school in question is UCLA.

The probe comes nearly a year after whistleblowers told the Free Beacon that the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA held Black and Hispanic applicants to a lower standard than white and Asian applicants.

The state of California banned affirmative action in college admissions in 1996. However, whistleblowers alleged that UCLA's med school admissions office under anesthesiologist Jennifer Lucero "frequently pushed through unqualified minority candidates to diversity the school," the Free Beach reported.

As a result, medical students were failing basic exams, known as shelf exams, in record droves, according to the report.

In the aftermath of the Free Beacon's report, the medical and policy advocacy group Do No Harm released a report last August showing that before Lucero took over in June 2020, the proportion of Black or Hispanic matriculants — students who passed the last exam in the final year of school — "closely mirrored" the proportion of Black or Hispanic applicants. The same went for white and Asian students.

In the first two years under Lucero, Do No Harm found that white and Asian matriculants decreased from 73% to 57% while the share of Black and Hispanic matriculants jumped from 16% to 30% all while the demographics of the applicant pool remained steady from before Lucero took over.

"The evidence is definitive: The Geffen School of Medicine has sullied their admissions process to the detriment of patient care," Do No Harm said in its analysis.

In announcing its probe, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights said it's investigating whether the medical school it did not name is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (Section 1557).

"HHS will not tolerate informal admissions practices and institutional policies that promote racial discrimination at HHS-funded institutions," HHS told the Free Beacon. "This investigation reflects the Administration's commitment to honor the hard work, excellence, and individual achievement of all students and not just those of particular racial backgrounds."

UCLA could lose millions in federal grants if HHS finds that it violated multiple laws banning racial discrimination.