Imagine a short list of the professions for which it is imperative that the person performing them is highly competent. The list would most likely include such occupations as airline pilot and structural engineer. One profession would almost assuredly be on everybody’s list: “medical doctor.” Without question, we want the people advising us on our health, diagnosing illnesses, prescribing cures, and operating on us to be the very best and brightest.
Yet today’s medical schools are no longer choosing faculty and students according to sensible meritocratic principles. Instead, they are often making personnel decisions and changing the curriculum according to principles of egalitarian social justice. This practice is now called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI, or DIE), although it is a continuation and extension of affirmative action policies that began in the 1960s.
Take, for example, the 2024 admission statistics for the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. According to the medical watchdog organization Do No Harm, the medical school accepted 21.6 percent of black applicants with MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) scores between 500 and 517, but only 3.5 percent of white applicants and 2.2 percent of Asian applicants with similar scores. In other words, an Asian applicant in that score range was only about one tenth as likely to be admitted as a black student.
Wisconsin’s anti-meritocratic admissions practices are not unusual at medical schools today. Another example is at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, where, also in 2024, the average MCAT scores for accepted black and Hispanic students were lower than the average MCAT scores for rejected white and Asian students. Similar patterns exist for other academic qualifications, such as undergraduate grades. Clearly, at many medical schools, choosing the best students is not the top priority in admissions.
Admissions is not the only area that is anti-meritocratic. Faculty hiring practices include measures used to screen for candidates preferred by DIE. Job advertisements are worded so that only minority doctors will be encouraged to apply. Applicants for medical school faculty positions are often required to write essays detailing their experiences advocating for DIE principles or minorities — with considerable advantage given to those expressing the right beliefs.
I chronicle these and other practices used by medical schools to promote DEI in a new report called “An End to Excellence: How Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Are Undermining Our Medical Schools,” published by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
I also describe the growing resistance against the DIE movement. According to the Best Colleges website, 14 states have passed anti-DIE legislation, with at least another 13 states introducing such bills. Shortly after President Trump regained his office, he signed two executive orders regarding DIE. One “required universities that receive federal funding to terminate any DEI programs that could be in violation of federal civil rights laws.” The other removed the ability of accrediting agencies to mandate DIE programs.
Despite this pushback, DIE remains deeply embedded in the medical schools. Especially troubling is that many DIE policies are still taking place after the 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended the longstanding confusing legal status of affirmative action policies by declaring that schools cannot discriminate on the basis of race.
UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine has been particularly defiant. Decision-makers there have ignored the state Proposition 209 (from 1996) that outlaws discrimination in all state entities, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and Trump’s executive orders. Even after the federal Department of Health and Human Services opened an investigation into UCLA’s discriminatory practices in early 2025, a medical school administrator sent around a memo affirming that race and sex remain important criteria for choosing members of admissions committees.
In May of 2025, Students for Fair Admissions (along with Do No Harm and rejected applicant Kelly Mahony) filed an anti-discrimination class action lawsuit against the Geffen School of Medicine, similar to the ones against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Perhaps this time UCLA will get the message, but the DIE mindset dies hard.
Some medical schools may even be hiding their defiance. According to The Daily Caller, in May of 2022, minority applicants at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine could be exempt from taking the MCAT if they participated in a summer research program. After Trump’s executive orders, the school’s website no longer claimed that the program is for minority students — but the application to the program starts by asking for specific demographic information, which suggests a high likelihood that race still determines who is chosen.
Vigilance is needed to make sure schools adhere to meritocratic practices. Doctors simply must be chosen from among the most intellectually gifted and studious individuals in society. Our lives depend on it — literally.
Jay Schalin is a senior fellow at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
Image: jarmoluk via Pixabay, Pixabay License.