If colleges and universities want the American taxpayer’s support, they should be forced to focus on merit alone.

P resident Trump is rightly demanding that colleges and universities prove they aren’t discriminating by race. Earlier this month, the president ordered his Department of Education to obtain their admissions data to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action. A recent report by my organization makes clear that medical schools are still heavily prioritizing less-qualified black applicants at the expense of Asians and whites — likely violating the Supreme Court’s ruling by continuing to discriminate by race. While enforcing the ruling is important, federal and state lawmakers should also refocus medical education on merit alone, for the sake of patient health.

I know from more than 50 years of experience at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine that admissions committees routinely sacrifice the primary consideration of merit in favor of secondary and even tertiary considerations. In their rush to admit a de facto quota of minority students, they have long focused not only explicitly on race but also on whether students have intangible qualities and different experiences — everything from participating in the Olympics to working at a clinic in Africa.

Yet there are better, merit-based bars that indicate a student’s likelihood of becoming an excellent physician capable of providing the best care. Research shows that an applicant’s score on the Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT, and undergraduate grade point average are the best indicators of how he or she will fare in medical school and ultimately in the medical profession. By playing down merit, medical schools are degrading the quality of America’s doctors and threatening the quality of care provided to patients. While medical school graduates must also take licensure exams before entering practice, these are minimal competency tests that do not ensure high quality.

I propose a twofold solution: Each medical school should announce a minimum MCAT score and undergraduate GPA necessary for admission, then institute a lottery system for applicants who clear those bars. This approach would not only end racial discrimination overnight — it would also strongly incentivize medical schools to admit the best-qualified students.

Under my proposal, prestigious institutions would likely set high bars. They have the pick of the litter when it comes to applicants, and once they’re legally banned from making non-merit-based decisions, their only incentive is to choose the most qualified students. Other medical schools would set lower bars, but the thresholds would likely be, on average, higher than they are today. As for students, they wouldn’t have to spend as much time, often years, doing unnecessary volunteer work or nonmedical activities to be considered. They don’t need to shadow physicians or work as scribes in a clinical setting to justify admission to medical school.

Virtually every medical school will oppose this reform because it wants to continue giving minority applicants an unfair advantage. They’ve fully bought into the lie — disproved by reams of research — that a more diverse workforce is essential to patient health. Yet under my proposal, they could still try to admit a higher share of minority students by adjusting the MCAT and GPA thresholds and hoping that the lottery ends up selecting a greater number of minority applicants. But crucially, they couldn’t game the system to accept students with preferred skin colors.

Some may wonder whether MCAT scores and GPAs should be the sole consideration for future physicians, who also need qualities like empathy and kindness. A new approach can account for this by requiring medical schools to consider letters of recommendation to ensure that applicants are of good character, morally sound, and committed to a medical career. The letters could weed out candidates who aren’t morally fit to be physicians, while the lottery would prevent this from becoming a loophole.

State lawmakers can take the lead by passing laws requiring medical schools that receive public funding to institute merit-based bars and a lottery system. But private medical schools may not be covered by these policies, so federal laws or regulations are needed, too. The Department of Education could tie federal funding to the adoption of this proposal. If colleges and universities want the American taxpayer’s support, they should be forced to focus on merit alone.

This proposal is grounded in common sense and real-world experience. European countries generally restrict medical school admission to students with good grades and high scores on standardized tests. They know what American medical schools have apparently forgotten — that the physicians who will eventually treat patients should be held to the highest standard, given that life and death are on the line. President Trump is right to check that higher education is fully complying with the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action. Yet for medical schools, it’s even more urgent to ensure equal treatment by focusing solely on merit.