The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that Ohio State’s medical school was found to have discriminated against white and Asian applicants in violation of federal law.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division cited admissions practices for the 2023, 2024, and 2025 incoming classes, saying that the school violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on color or race, according to a news release.
The Justice Department also mentioned the 2023 Supreme Court decision of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively banned affirmative action.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said, “Despite SFFA, OSU Med allows some applicants to bypass its own screening process and skip interviews solely because of the color of their skin.”
“A university’s admissions process, and all its stages, should apply equally to all applicants regardless of race,” she continued. “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 release went on to describe how OSU used a “Holistic Approach” as a workaround to admit so-called “underrepresented minorities.”
In addition, the medical school’s admissions process has an interview stage, but the DOJ discovered that black applicants who are screened and interviewed “are about 2.8 times as likely to be admitted than Asian applicants with equal credentials.”
