Medical Schools Still Struggle to Define Unbiased Equality on Their Campuses
According to a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, several U.S. medical schools, still, appear to be ignoring the Supreme Court decision that banned racial preferences in university admissions [Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard].1 Though not alone among schools of higher education, medical schools appear to be among the more frequent offenders. Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals that studies such preferences in medicine, obtained so far admission data from 24 (they requested data from 93) public medical schools for the year 2024. At many of them MCAT admission scores of Black applicants were lower than for Caucasian and Asian applicants, and Black candidates, assuming equal MCAT scores, had much higher admission rates than Caucasian and Asian candidates.
Prominent among those schools, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (Black applicants x10 chance of Caucasians and Asians), Eastern Virginia Medical School (x11).
To a degree that should not surprise, as the editorial noted, because after the Supreme Court decision, the Association of Medical Colleges was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, and schools have been looking at all kinds of ways to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision.
This is, of course, a subject that not only relates to admission policies in medical schools but also affects many current discussions—or should we call it negotiations—between institutions of higher learning and the government regarding other transgressions and, especially, how antisemitism on campuses has been handled. There is clearly work left to be done, and we, here at The Reproductive Times, will continue reporting.
Reference
Editorial. The Wall Street Journal. July 17, 2025. pA14