The U.S. Justice Department has accused the UC Davis School of Medicine of choosing race “over merit, skill, and competence” in its admissions process, favoring Black and Latino students even when they weren’t as qualified as white and Asian applicants.

The department said its findings, announced Wednesday afternoon, were based on a six-month investigation by its Civil Rights Division. The Justice Department said it found that the Northern California university violated the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-based determinations in admissions. The findings have been contested by the school.

“Davis Med’s actions reflect both unabashed contempt for the rule of law and plain disregard for the potential public health consequences of putting race over merit, skill, and competence,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“The Department will not allow schools to violate federal law without consequence.”

A spokesperson said the university was “disappointed” with the report and its findings.

“UC Davis School of Medicine strongly disagrees with any characterization of its admissions practices as discriminatory or inconsistent with applicable law,” a school statement read. “The report’s findings do not accurately reflect the school’s rigorous, individualized, and merit-based admissions process and our firm commitment to complying with applicable federal and state antidiscrimination laws.”

The department outlined its case in a 12-page letter to an attorney representing UC Davis, claiming the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard.

Title VI prohibits institutions receiving federal funding from discriminating based on race, while the 2023 decision banned affirmative action in higher-education admissions.

The Justice Department said its investigation found the medical school “adopted admissions practices with the express purpose of circumventing” the 2023 ruling.

That method was the “Davis Scale,” the department said. The letter called the scale a “continuous measure of socioeconomic disadvantage” that includes parental income and education, growing up in a medically underserved area and other socioeconomic variables.

The Justice Department included UC Davis literature that said the scale had allowed the school to triple the enrollment of Black and Latino students.

In 2024, Davis’ medical school became the third most racially diverse medical school in the country, the Justice Department claimed.

Conversely, the department said its review of medical school admissions data from 2023 to 2025 found that 93% of white and certain Asian applicants had MCAT scores at or above those of the average Black student.

It also showed that Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted at rates up to six times higher than whites and Asians, despite consistently having, on average, lower academic qualifications, according to the department.

The Justice Department said it is attempting to enter into a voluntary agreement with UC Davis to bring the medical school into compliance. The department would eventually sue the medical school if such a resolution is not found.

UC Davis did not indicate whether it would comply with the Justice Department.

“UC Davis is fully committed to meeting the critical healthcare needs of California, particularly those in underserved and under-resourced areas,” the school said in a statement.

The finding mirrors similar investigations into medical schools at UCLA and UC San Diego.

The Justice Department said last month that UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine intentionally used race for the last three years to discriminate against white and Asian applicants during admissions.

Three months after his son was born, Kevin Maguire felt alone.

It was 2019. He had recently moved to Barcelona with his wife and daughter and was working on marketing projects for Fortune 500 companies. The birth of his son, Bodhi, should have been a joyous event. But Maguire, now 43, became sad and irritable, and didn’t want to be around his newborn. He withdrew from family and friends, often playing video games late into the night or finding excuses to get out of the house.

“I would take the dog out for a walk,” Maguire said. “I wanted to get far away enough that I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew and I would just sit and cry.”

Desperate for answers, he entered his symptoms online. Maguire, author of the recently published book “The New Fatherhood: Why Everything They Told You About Being a Dad Is Wrong, and How Embracing It Will Transform Your Life,” knew to look for signs of the “baby blues” in his wife. But he was surprised by articles that said men could experience postpartum depression too. The diagnosis resonated and he began writing about his condition and the trials of fatherhood on Substack.

New dads face psychological pressures, from sleepless nights to sky-high bills, which can contribute to postpartum depression. So can shifting hormone levels.

“One thing I found in my lab’s research is that when new dads have really low levels of testosterone, they might report more symptoms of postpartum depression,” said Darby Saxbe, a professor of psychology at USC and author of the recently published “Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives.”

While hormonal shifts can create challenges, they also help men adapt to fatherhood, Saxbe explained. Several hormones can spike in men when they become dads, including oxytocin, linked to better relationship quality; vasopressin, associated with emotional bonding; and prolactin, which promotes lactation in women and caregiving behavior in guys.

New dads can also experience a decline in testosterone. According to a 2011 paper from University of Notre Dame professor Lee Gettler, part of the largest study on fatherhood and testosterone ever conducted, men averaged around a 25% drop in testosterone after becoming fathers.

While dads have reasons to be concerned by plummeting levels of testosterone, a modest dip isn’t necessarily a disaster — in fact, it can make men better parents and partners.

“We often get invested in the idea that men should always have the highest possible levels of testosterone,” Saxbe said. “What the research tells us is a little more nuanced. You really want flexibility. You want a hormonal system that can adapt to the different demands of your life.”

The prospect of a decline might scare soon-to-be fathers, especially those on TikTok and Instagram, where accounts push the idea that having “high T” is the key to being a “real man,” according to a recent study in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Influencers stand to profit persuading men there’s a widespread “masculinity crisis,” the researchers found, noting that 72% of the accounts they analyzed had a stake in testosterone supplements and treatments.

But studies show more testosterone isn’t always better. “We found that when dads have higher testosterone, even before birth, they’re less invested [than men with lower testosterone] in co-parenting a few months after birth,” Saxbe said. High T fathers were more stressed from parenting than their lower T counterparts, and had partners who were less satisfied in their romantic relationships.

This jibes with the challenge hypothesis, which says, in multiple species, testosterone levels rise when males battle for attention from potential mates and go down when it’s time to take care of the young.

While a small decline can be adaptive, dads face mental health risks when their testosterone drops too low.

There is no “normal” level of testosterone, said Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men’s Clinic at UCLA Health. Experts recommend that men should consider treatment if their levels dip below 300 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL). But men metabolize testosterone in different ways, meaning a healthy level for one might be low for another.

“If a new dad comes to me and his testosterone is 298 [ng/dL], he’s below the threshold,” Mills said. “But if he has zero symptoms and everything else is going great — he’s over the moon with his new child, he’s so happy — that’s not somebody I’m going to treat with testosterone.”

He notes that the drop in testosterone fathers experience can partly be attributed to the stresses that come with a new kid: less sleep, a poor diet and fewer trips to the gym. That means there are precautions that expectant fathers can take that don’t involve testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).

Still, while some guys with low testosterone levels might not need TRT, others in the “normal” range could benefit from treatment. (Dads who want another kid soon, beware. Mills notes that testosterone replacement therapy can take a man’s sperm count to zero.)

Both Mills and Saxbe stress that men should be paying attention to symptoms of low testosterone — such as depression and low libido — rather than trying to reach or maintain an ideal number. They also agree that tending to mental health concerns is hugely important for new fathers.

Eventually, after Maguire researched his condition, he recovered after time spent meditating, exercising and bonding with his son.

“A lot of new dads don’t realize how much they’re struggling because they feel ashamed or because they don’t realize it’s common shortly after the birth of a baby,” Saxbe said.

When they struggle, fathers can fixate on testosterone because that’s what modern culture tells them will make them feel better. And sometimes testosterone replacement therapy works. But Saxbe stresses a lot of men could use psychotherapy or support groups that bring dads together, as well as more time bonding with loved ones in general.

“The thing that predicts a man’s well-being and longevity is the quality of his relationships with other people,” said Saxbe. “You can be the world’s best weightlifter. You can have a low body-fat percentage. You can be killing it at work. Those things don’t predict how happy you’re going to be at 80.”