Discriminatory ‘shadow’ review process locks White, Asian students out of California med school, DOJ alleges

DOJ Alleges Discriminatory Shadow Review Process Locks White, Asian Students from UC San Diego Med School

Explorehotelworld.com – The Department of Justice has filed allegations that a discriminatory shadow review process locks White and Asian applicants out of UC San Diego's medical school program. According to federal officials, the institution allegedly favored Black and Hispanic candidates over more academically qualified White and Asian students through an admissions system that effectively used race as a proxy. This legal action threatens approximately $1 billion in federal funding for the medical school.

The investigation, initiated by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in March, examines whether the school's admissions practices violate constitutional principles established by the Supreme Court. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon sent correspondence to the medical school outlining findings that White applicants with superior MCAT scores and GPAs were being systematically disadvantaged compared to Black applicants who received admission at more than double the rate.

How the Shadow Review Process Worked

Central to the DOJ's allegations is what officials describe as a "shadow application process" that evaluated candidates based on their responses to a hardship essay question. Rather than relying primarily on standardized metrics, the admissions committee used these personal narratives to determine racial and ethnic backgrounds, effectively creating a workaround to consider race in admissions despite Supreme Court restrictions.

"Rather than rely on MCAT scores or GPA, San Diego Med's shadow application process unlawfully judged applicants for admission based on their race," Dhillon stated in a formal declaration regarding the investigation's findings.

The DOJ's analysis covered admissions from 2019 through 2025, revealing consistent patterns that officials said were too uniform to result from random chance. The investigation concluded that the medical school failed to present adequate evidence explaining why these disparities existed, particularly given that White and Asian applicants generally demonstrated stronger academic credentials on paper.

Post-Supreme Court Admissions Strategy

Following the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which declared race-conscious admissions unconstitutional, UC San Diego's leadership maintained commitment to supporting underrepresented minority students in medicine. The DOJ alleges that admissions director Brian Zeglen developed a strategy in June 2023 to elevate dozens of applicants with lower test scores and grades, framing the approach as considering personal hardship rather than explicit racial preference.

Documents obtained by federal investigators show Zeglen proposed moving up to 62 applicants from what he termed "Group C" into the interview pool through what he called a "bump up" mechanism. At this stage, the admissions board could access applicants' racial information, allowing the process to function as a de facto racial consideration while maintaining the appearance of objective evaluation.

Statistical data from the investigation reveals admission rates for Black applicants significantly exceeded those for White applicants across multiple years. In 2023, 6.18% of Black applicants gained admission compared to 2.45% of White applicants. These figures shifted slightly but maintained the same pattern through 2024 and 2025, with Black admission rates of 5.25% and 5.14% respectively against White rates of 2.1% and 1.96%.

The Justice Department's findings parallel allegations that emerged during the Harvard affirmative action litigation, where plaintiffs contended that Asian American candidates with stronger academic records faced lower admission rates than comparably qualified peers from other racial backgrounds. Federal investigators determined that the disparities at UC San Diego reflected a systematic approach rather than statistical anomaly.

Academic credentials data further supported the DOJ's position, showing that admitted Black and Hispanic students consistently possessed lower median MCAT scores than their White and Asian counterparts across the 2023, 2024, and 2025 incoming classes. Hispanic students scored at the 80th percentile while Black students reached the 88th percentile, compared to White students at the 95th percentile and Asian students at the 94th percentile in 2023 alone.