DOJ Civil Rights Division opens 15 new race-discrimination probes into medical school admissions

On June 4, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced that it had opened 15 new investigations into potential race discrimination in the admissions practices of U.S. medical schools. The Division did not name the schools, but said each receives millions of dollars in federal funding and would be examined for compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which barred race-conscious admissions. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the schools "appear more concerned about the demographics of their incoming classes than training students to succeed in the profession."

The simultaneous opening of 15 probes follows earlier adverse findings the Division announced in May 2026 against the medical schools of Yale University and UCLA, which it accused of unlawfully advantaging Black and Hispanic applicants, and a set of Title VI probes opened in March 2026 into Ohio State, Stanford, and the University of California, San Diego. The Division stated it had not reached any conclusions about the new investigations.

The action continues a pattern in which the Civil Rights Division — historically the federal enforcer of anti-discrimination law on behalf of marginalized groups — is directed to pursue race-conscious admissions and diversity practices as the violation, on a reverse-discrimination theory grounded in SFFA. Opening 15 investigations at once, on the heels of the Yale and UCLA findings and with federal funding as implied leverage, reflects a coordinated enforcement campaign rather than case-by-case review: the investigative power of the Department is deployed as an instrument of administration policy (politicized investigations and weaponizing the Justice Department), while the reinterpretation of Title VI to bar diversity-oriented admissions narrows the civil-rights protections the statute was enacted to provide.