The Justice Department has concluded that UCLA’s medical school engaged in illegal race-based discrimination in admissions, alleging the school favored Black and Hispanic applicants in violation of federal law.

The finding follows a yearlong federal investigation and marks the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s push to crack down on diversity-based admissions practices across U.S. universities. A lawsuit filed by medical advocacy group Do No Harm prompted the Justice Department’s investigation into UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

“UCLA’s admissions process has been focused on racial demographics at the expense of merit and excellence — allowing racial politics to distract the school from the vital work of training great doctors.” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Racism in admissions is both illegal and anti-American, and this Department will not allow it to continue.”

The Justice Department investigation unveiled that UCLA’s medical school intentionally selected minority medical students based upon the presumption that minority patients will receive better care if they are under the treatment of a minority doctor. However, the Justice Department found that the medical school’s focus on selecting minority medical students resulted in the selected students having significantly lower GPAs and MCAT scores on average than their White and Asian counterparts.

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Amid its investigation, the Justice Department found that David Geffen School of Medicine’s executive director of admissions distributed a document outlining how the medical school could still achieve its “diversity goals” to admission committee members. This document also stated the theory that “diversity” of healthcare workers will be crucial in improving healthcare outcomes for Black and Hispanic patients and that denying Black and Hispanic students’ admission could cause the deaths of future Black and Hispanic patients.

The medical school has also adopted a “holistic” approach in its admissions process, implying that factors such as “citizenship,” “distance travelled,” “relationship status,” “cultural events,” “race,” “national origin” and “sexual orientation” are all taken into consideration, according to an Association of American Medical Colleges model used by the school.

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Prospective medical students of UCLA’s medical school also engaged in a PREview Exam, a multiple-choice test, which specifically asked applicants if they were part of a marginalized group.

“By design, this question asks Black and Hispanic applicants to reveal their race so that DGSOM can know and consider it,” the Justice Department report stated.

The Justice Department found major disparities between the test scores of White and Asian students and Hispanic and Black students admitted in the 2023 and 2024 cohorts.

In the 2023 cohort, the median MCAT scores among Black and Hispanic test takers were at the 68th percentile, while those who did not report their race scored at the 96th percentile.

GPAs also show a significant gap, with the lowest median (Hispanic) trailing the highest median (Asian) by 0.26 grade points.

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And in the 2024 cohort, Hispanic students scores averaged in the 66 percentile, Black students in the 72 percentile; while those who declined to share their race scored at the 92 percentile.

“Federal law and the Supreme Court precedent are clear: Race discrimination has no place in our nation’s institutions of higher learning,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. “The pattern of illegal and odious conduct by UCLA’s medical school is abhorrent to our Constitution and our nation’s founding principles.”

The conclusion of the investigation comes as the Trump administration launched investigations into the admission process of medical schools at Stanford University, Ohio State University, and the University of California, San Diego in March.

Fox News Digital reached out to UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine for comment.

The top candidates in California’s wide-open race for governor took the stage Wednesday night in a Los Angeles debate that began politely but quickly devolved into another raucous clash.

Former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra and billionaire Tom Steyer, both Democratic frontrunners, were primary targets of the political attacks — Becerra for his record as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and Steyer over his past investments, including in private prisons that housed immigrant detainees.

San José Mayor Matt Mahan started off the debate by lashing out at both Republicans and Democrats.

“We do not need the leadership that MAGA candidates on this stage are offering that’s divisive. We don’t need the leadership of a billionaire who’s now against everything he made his money in, or a career politician who has failed again and again to deliver results,” Mahan said, taking shots at conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, Steyer and Becerra, respectively.

Mahan had good reason to go on the attack. The moderate Democrat has struggled to meet early expectations that he would emerge as a top-tier candidate.

The California Democratic Party’s latest poll, released Monday, showed Hilton and Becerra tied at 18%, and Bianco, a Republican, with 14%. Steyer received the backing of 12%, while support for the other top Democrats in the race — former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, Mahan, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — were in the single digits. Thurmond did not meet the polling threshold to qualify for the televised debates this week.

Sanctuary state policy leads to kerfuffle

In a tense exchange on immigration and the state’s sanctuary laws, Porter said, “We ought to enforce our sanctuary laws everywhere so we don’t have crazy cowboys taking the law into their own hands.”

It was a shot at Bianco, who has criticized the law that blocks local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration agents.

“Tell that to the crazy mother who lost her child,” Bianco said, referring to a case in his county involving a 14-year-old who was hit and killed by a driver who he said had two prior DUI arrests and was in the country illegally.

“Sir, I don’t need any lectures from you about being a mother,” Porter, a single mother of three and the only woman on the debate stage, shot back.

“You might,” Bianco said, prompting a nasty look from Porter and groans and boos from the studio audience.

The one-hour clash followed another Wednesday evening debate, among candidates for Los Angeles mayor, part of a doubleheader hosted and broadcast by NBC4 and Telemundo 52 in Los Angeles. Both took place at the Skirball Cultural Center and were moderated by NBC4 News anchor Colleen Williams, chief political reporter Conan Nolan and Telemundo 52 News anchor Enrique Chiabra.

Republicans and Democrats divided on immigration

Democrats were in lockstep on most issues related to immigration, including opposing Immigration & Customs Enforcement raids and supporting the sanctuary law that prohibits police from coordinating with the federal agency.

Republicans said the controversial state law, which was approved in 2017 during President Trump’s first term, has hurt public safety.

“I have someone in my jail right now … he’s convicted of a felony, but the three prior convictions for DUI, he was released from jail,” Bianco said. “He was deported on two of them, [came] back into the country, and then he killed a 14-year-old boy with another DUI. So we have to wait until somebody dies before we deport criminals who are in our jail.”

Villaraigosa countered that the law allows for violent criminals to be deported and that thousands have been by state and local law enforcement agencies.

Hilton, a British national who became a U.S. citizen in 2021, declared himself “the candidate of the legal immigrant community” and said the governor’s job is to enforce laws, whether they agree with them or not.

All the Democrats said they would restore full Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants, which has been rolled back due to budget constraints, while Republicans said they would not.

Courting Latino voters

One of the many undercurrents of Wednesday’s debate was the ongoing tussle between Becerra and Villaraigosa. Both have been competing for California’s pivotal Latino vote, and the former Los Angeles mayor’s attacks have become increasingly aggressive as Becerra has ascended in the governor’s race.

At about 40% of the state’s population, Latinos are California’s largest ethnic group but also among the groups least likely to vote, casting just 21% of ballots in the 2022 primary election.

Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC, said Becerra’s surge in momentum could boost Latino turnout, “but I don’t see any evidence right now that actually tells us that will happen. The thing about primaries, unfortunately, is that turnout is always low. Even in a competitive primary like this.”

On Wednesday, Villaraigosa launched a new digital ad highlighting a former member of the Biden administration questioning Becerra’s record as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

He highlighted the issue during Wednesday’s debate after the moderates asked the candidates how they would address homelessness in California.

“Mr. Becerra, are you proud that you pushed out 85,000 migrant children? They were, according to the New York Times, they were maimed, they were exploited,” Villaraigosa said. “Some were even killed. You said those are MAGA talking points, it’s a MAGA hoax. Tell that to the children who died.”

“So I’m not sure what that had to do with homelessness, but cálmate, Antonio, cálmate,” Becerra responded, urging his opponent to “calm down.” He accused Villaraigosa of parroting the unfounded attacks that Trump deployed against former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

“We protected kids. We did not let them be abused,” Becerra said. “Stop lying.”

Speaking of homelessness

The Democrats and Republicans on stage were sharply divided on the best way to address California’s ongoing homelessness crisis.

People living on the streets are “pawns in the homeless industrial complex,” Bianco said, adding: “This is not and has never been about homes. This is about drug and alcohol addiction.”

Mahan, Villaraigosa and Becerra touted their records building housing and expanding mental health services, saying those will help reduce homelessness. They, along with Porter, also called for more oversight of state homelessness spending.

Hilton said the issue is one of the state’s biggest failures and blamed the Democrats — the party that has controlled state government for the past 16 years.

“Some of these Democrats are on this stage, they talk as if we’re in some parallel universe where Democrats haven’t been running this state for the last 16 years of one-party rule,” he said.

Democratic shift on nuclear plants, high-speed rail

A series of lightning-round questions highlighted some subtle shifts on traditional Democratic policies as candidates aim to make the state more affordable.

Democrats led the charge to decommission nuclear power plants in California over concerns of potential environmental and health catastrophes, but as the state struggles with energy affordability, all the Democrats (and both Republicans) said they would support further extending operations at the state’s only remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo County.

Most of the Democrats also said they support finishing a high-speed rail line from Bakersfield to Modesto, despite the massive cost overruns and delays, but said the project should be done cheaper and more efficiently. Hilton and Bianco want to scuttle the project.

And all Democrats except Steyer said they would vote against a proposed billionaire tax that will likely be on the November ballot mostly to backfill federal cuts to healthcare coverage. Although most of the Democratic candidates aside from Mahan say they support higher taxes on the wealthy, they have raised issues with the details of the proposal, including the fact that it is a one-time tax.