The courage of conviction sometimes means standing up for principles that others find inconvenient. This week, the Trump administration did exactly that by throwing the full weight of the federal government behind a lawsuit that cuts to the very heart of merit, fairness, and equal treatment under the law.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon led the charge as the Department of Justice filed to intervene in a lawsuit against the University of California, Los Angeles medical school. The allegations are serious and straightforward: UCLA is accused of using race as a determining factor in selecting its medical students, a practice the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional.
The Justice Department’s filing pulls no punches. “After a long history of moving incrementally away from racial preferences in education, this Nation and its Supreme Court cast off this vestige of our troubled history surrounding race and set out to mandate colorblind admissions in all public (and publicly funded) universities,” the department stated in its intervening lawsuit.
The filing specifically calls out UCLA Medical School’s Associate Dean for Admissions, Jennifer Lucero, noting that she “boldly states on her official profile that she takes a special interest in diversity issues in medicine.” That statement, the Justice Department argues, reveals an institutional commitment to considering race in admissions decisions.
The principle at stake here is not complicated. “There is but one legal avenue for a public or publicly funded medical school to pursue diversity in medicine: admit the most qualified candidates regardless of race, and expect that those most qualified candidates will come from every race, because they do,” the Justice Department declared.
The original lawsuit was filed in May by Do No Harm, a medical advocacy group, alongside Students for Fair Admissions, the same organization that successfully challenged Harvard’s admissions practices before the Supreme Court. That landmark case resulted in the high court overturning affirmative action and declaring race-based admissions schemes unconstitutional.
The stakes extend far beyond the ivory towers of academia. This case carries massive implications for the medical profession itself, as institutions scramble to find creative ways to circumvent the Supreme Court’s clear directive, all in service of ideological commitments to race-consciousness rather than merit-based selection.
The Justice Department raised a particularly troubling consequence of race-based medical school admissions. When patients know that medical schools give preferential treatment based on race, they will inevitably wonder whether their non-white doctor “is really qualified to practice medicine and can give them the same quality care as a White or Asian doctor who did not receive preferential admission to medical school.”
That nagging doubt, the department argues, casts a shadow over the doctor-patient relationship and undermines confidence in the medical profession itself. It is a shadow that falls not just on those who may have received preferential treatment, but on every qualified minority physician who earned their position through merit alone.
The irony is bitter. Policies intended to promote equality end up breeding suspicion and resentment, while genuinely qualified minority candidates find their achievements questioned through no fault of their own.
The Trump administration’s intervention sends an unmistakable message: the law means what it says, and the Supreme Court’s rulings will be enforced. Medical schools, like all institutions of higher learning, must select students based on qualifications and merit, not skin color. That is not just good law. It is good medicine.
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