The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Oct. 21 that Ohio State University’s College of Medicine discriminated against white and Asian applicants in admissions to its 2023, 2024, and 2025 incoming classes.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division concluded that the school’s practices violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which restricted the use of race in college admissions.
Investigators found that black applicants who completed screening and interviews were about 2.8 times as likely to be admitted as Asian applicants with the same credentials, the DOJ stated.
The DOJ also identified what it called a “side door” that allowed some applicants to gain admission without receiving a screening score or sitting for an interview.
Through that pathway, black applicants were four times as likely to be admitted as white applicants in 2024 and 2025 combined, the DOJ said. No Asian applicants were admitted through that process during those two years.
Ohio State University disputed the allegations.
“Ohio State strongly disagrees with the findings,” Benjamin Johnson, chief communications officer for OSU, said in an email to The Epoch Times. “The university is in full compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling and all federal and state laws and regulations regarding admissions. The College of Medicine does not consider race, ethnicity or any other protected class during the admissions process. Ohio State follows the law and will contest these findings.”
The DOJ said the medical school uses what it calls a “Holistic Approach,” under which screeners evaluate applicants in three categories: attributes, experiences, and metrics. The medical school “double weights” the attributes and experiences category to get more minority admissions, according to the Justice Department. Attributes and experiences are based on “vague characteristics” such as advocacy, social justice, or civic engagement, while the metrics category is based solely on academic performance, according to the DOJ.
“A university’s admissions process, and all its stages, should apply equally to all applicants regardless of race,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the civil rights division, said in a statement. “The use of a separate admissions process based on race is plainly illegal under federal law, and this Department will not allow these appalling practices to continue at OSU Med or any other federally funded higher ed institution.”
The DOJ said it would start settlement negotiations with the OSU College of Medicine. If negotiations didn’t result in a settlement agreement, the Justice Department said it would then file a lawsuit.
Ohio State agreed to pay $2.1 million in August to resolve allegations that it failed to disclose employees’ ties to China in applications for federal research funding.
That settlement involved NASA and National Science Foundation grants funding research from November 2012 through August 2023.
In June, the Justice Department announced it had opened 15 new investigations into potential race discrimination in medical schools. The DOJ said each of the medical schools under investigation received millions in federal funding.
The DOJ had also concluded in May after investigations that UCLA and Yale had both illegally used race in medical school admissions.
