DOJ says Yale medical school discriminated against Asian, White applicants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess when I am next looking for a doctor all I have to do is pick the one with the highest MCAT scores and I will know that I picked the best doctor.

This is a fallacious argument. We would all agree that a small difference in MCAT scores is not meaningful for doctor quality. But yes, all else equal, on average, people who can do well on a high stakes technical test are more likely to have full command of the information required to make accurate diagnoses and to understand the subtleties of the evidence about different kinds of treatments. And to have the interest and ability to keep up with medical research. Do you really not believe this?

I’m not sure if this is really true. A lot of being a doctor is communication and relational. You can have a smart doctor who can’t explain a therapy or makes a patient uncomfortable and as a result, they are ineffective. I agree perhaps in research this may be the case but most doctors need to be good enough to meet the already very high standards and then after that the other softer factors come into play. I teach communication at my medical school and interview patients on this as part of my work and I can tell you that this relational aspects are super important.

And yes there a tons of papers (just do a simple google) about how culture is important. And just general diversity. I was a mom in medical school and I brought to the table so much more knowledge about parenting on my peds rotations or just understanding how hard it was for a postpartum.
mom to be admitted and not see their baby. If we had just a bunch of single, unattached, male doctors- they wouldn’t understand that the mom needed to pump to keep her supple etc and I could ask her those questions. so all this to say- even if say my male colleague had a 520 mcat and I had a 518 mcat - that patient needed someone like me on the team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Justice Department concluded after a year-long investigation that Yale School of Medicine discriminated in admissions by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over White and Asian applicants, saying Yale continued using race or race-linked factors after the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative-action ruling. DOJ cited admissions data and internal documents, including a claim that similarly qualified Black applicants had much higher interview odds than Asian applicants. Yale had not commented in the Washington Post report, and the case fits a broader Trump administration push against race-conscious admissions and DEI practices in higher education.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/05/14/doj-says-yale-medical-school-discriminated-against-asian-white-applicants/?utm_source=reddit.com

no surprise at all. many med schools do this, especially top20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess when I am next looking for a doctor all I have to do is pick the one with the highest MCAT scores and I will know that I picked the best doctor.

This is a fallacious argument. We would all agree that a small difference in MCAT scores is not meaningful for doctor quality. But yes, all else equal, on average, people who can do well on a high stakes technical test are more likely to have full command of the information required to make accurate diagnoses and to understand the subtleties of the evidence about different kinds of treatments. And to have the interest and ability to keep up with medical research. Do you really not believe this?

I’m not sure if this is really true. A lot of being a doctor is communication and relational. You can have a smart doctor who can’t explain a therapy or makes a patient uncomfortable and as a result, they are ineffective. I agree perhaps in research this may be the case but most doctors need to be good enough to meet the already very high standards and then after that the other softer factors come into play. I teach communication at my medical school and interview patients on this as part of my work and I can tell you that this relational aspects are super important.

And yes there a tons of papers (just do a simple google) about how culture is important. And just general diversity. I was a mom in medical school and I brought to the table so much more knowledge about parenting on my peds rotations or just understanding how hard it was for a postpartum.
mom to be admitted and not see their baby. If we had just a bunch of single, unattached, male doctors- they wouldn’t understand that the mom needed to pump to keep her supple etc and I could ask her those questions. so all this to say- even if say my male colleague had a 520 mcat and I had a 518 mcat - that patient needed someone like me on the team.

PP specifically said small differences in MCAT are not meaningful, so why are you bringing up 520 vs 518? Beyond that, your post is just anecdote and feels. Cite a quality study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess when I am next looking for a doctor all I have to do is pick the one with the highest MCAT scores and I will know that I picked the best doctor.

This is a fallacious argument. We would all agree that a small difference in MCAT scores is not meaningful for doctor quality. But yes, all else equal, on average, people who can do well on a high stakes technical test are more likely to have full command of the information required to make accurate diagnoses and to understand the subtleties of the evidence about different kinds of treatments. And to have the interest and ability to keep up with medical research. Do you really not believe this?

I’m not sure if this is really true. A lot of being a doctor is communication and relational. You can have a smart doctor who can’t explain a therapy or makes a patient uncomfortable and as a result, they are ineffective. I agree perhaps in research this may be the case but most doctors need to be good enough to meet the already very high standards and then after that the other softer factors come into play. I teach communication at my medical school and interview patients on this as part of my work and I can tell you that this relational aspects are super important.

And yes there a tons of papers (just do a simple google) about how culture is important. And just general diversity. I was a mom in medical school and I brought to the table so much more knowledge about parenting on my peds rotations or just understanding how hard it was for a postpartum.
mom to be admitted and not see their baby. If we had just a bunch of single, unattached, male doctors- they wouldn’t understand that the mom needed to pump to keep her supple etc and I could ask her those questions. so all this to say- even if say my male colleague had a 520 mcat and I had a 518 mcat - that patient needed someone like me on the team.

As a doc who had kids in residency whose med school best friends had kids in med school and residency, and all three of our MCATs convert to 521+, I can assure you there are plenty of top smarts, communicative, empathetic female docs to go around.

The prior poster is correct, all else equal, higher MCAT and rigorous education correlates to better doctor for figuring out rare diagnoses, correlating incongruous data, and guiding to the best next step in treatment. It is a fallacy that super-bright high scorers are not adept at discerning nuance and communicating that nuance effectively. In my decades of experience, we are a lot better than those with MCATs that were significantly lower (ie 520+ versus 508).

[Anonymous]

Im sadly not surprised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your doctor's taxes is important can I ask for a white doctor if I'm white? I would think and hope the answer would be 'no.'

Seeing a doctor is not like getting an oil change or buying a gallon of milk or learning soccer. It's an intimate relationship and some.peopme may need a white doctor or an Asian doctor or a female doctor or a black doctor for whatever reason.

No it isn’t like that at all. These are highly trained professionals and their qualifications should have nothing to do with their gender or race. You are exposing your own ignorance.

This. And by the way one of the smartest docs in my T3 med school is an underrepresented race. These newer practices of significantly lowering the bar diminish all that she worked for. It makes more sense to boost the educational opportunities of underrepresented students in elementary, middle and high school and get more in the pipeline.
Another unpopular opinion: males need the same boost early on. Medical schools went from predominantly male applicants in 1992 to predominantly female in a span of 25 years. Schools now struggle to have the 50-50 gender balance in med school, especially schools that are not in the top-20 med schools. There is going to be a significant shortage of male docs. The answer is not to lower the bar at med school entry, it is to encourage more males all the way through starting in elementary, so careers that require college and professional school are valued by males.

[Anonymous]

^ I am female. The parent of sons and a D. What I have seen is disheartening indeed for the future of males in top jobs. I am tired of summer stem programs that eliminate my boys from applying just because of their gender. It kills me to say so as a woman physician but it has gone way too far in the other direction.

[Anonymous]

Like with the SAT, LSAT and GRE, if you are going to admit only high scoring MCAT applicants, then you will have practically no black doctors.

A balance has to be struck but it looks like whatever Yale was doing was pretty close to selecting by race when you get to a 30x advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all know many colleges discriminate against Asians and whites. It is a liberal trend that current administration tries to revert. Not because they care about law, or fairness, but because they care about predominantly white maga base. What maga doesn't get is that with a pure merit based adminission, top schools like Yale or Harvard will be 80%+ Asian. And it is not because Asian kids are smarter but because they work harder being pushed most of the times by their families. That's the reality like it or not.

Pure merit isn’t test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We all know many colleges discriminate against Asians and whites. It is a liberal trend that current administration tries to revert. Not because they care about law, or fairness, but because they care about predominantly white maga base. What maga doesn't get is that with a pure merit based adminission, top schools like Yale or Harvard will be 80%+ Asian. And it is not because Asian kids are smarter but because they work harder being pushed most of the times by their families. That's the reality like it or not.

Why would maga care if a lot of doctors are Asian? Does maga have respect for doctors of any race?

You didn't get it. Maga care about their white kids not getting into colleges and about them not being able to find white doctors. They blame it on DEI but even without the DEI, their kids will not get higher chances because in a merit based process Asian will fill all the spots.

Asians consistently fail holistic admissions. It’s not racism but rather being one dimensional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We all know many colleges discriminate against Asians and whites. It is a liberal trend that current administration tries to revert. Not because they care about law, or fairness, but because they care about predominantly white maga base. What maga doesn't get is that with a pure merit based adminission, top schools like Yale or Harvard will be 80%+ Asian. And it is not because Asian kids are smarter but because they work harder being pushed most of the times by their families. That's the reality like it or not.

Way to cope. They’re actually smarter. Some are hard working some are not. But they’re smarter on average for sure.

Your racism is shining through.

[Anonymous]

It depends. For high stakes surgery, race is irrelevant to me. I want the most intelligent and highly competent doctor available. Shaun Murphy would do. But for a routine annual checkup, sure, I would prefer someone who is a good communicator and pleasant to deal with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We all know many colleges discriminate against Asians and whites. It is a liberal trend that current administration tries to revert. Not because they care about law, or fairness, but because they care about predominantly white maga base. What maga doesn't get is that with a pure merit based adminission, top schools like Yale or Harvard will be 80%+ Asian. And it is not because Asian kids are smarter but because they work harder being pushed most of the times by their families. That's the reality like it or not.

Why would maga care if a lot of doctors are Asian? Does maga have respect for doctors of any race?

You didn't get it. Maga care about their white kids not getting into colleges and about them not being able to find white doctors. They blame it on DEI but even without the DEI, their kids will not get higher chances because in a merit based process Asian will fill all the spots.

Asians consistently fail holistic admissions. It’s not racism but rather being one dimensional.

It's not being one dimensional but rather racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We all know many colleges discriminate against Asians and whites. It is a liberal trend that current administration tries to revert. Not because they care about law, or fairness, but because they care about predominantly white maga base. What maga doesn't get is that with a pure merit based adminission, top schools like Yale or Harvard will be 80%+ Asian. And it is not because Asian kids are smarter but because they work harder being pushed most of the times by their families. That's the reality like it or not.

Why would maga care if a lot of doctors are Asian? Does maga have respect for doctors of any race?

You didn't get it. Maga care about their white kids not getting into colleges and about them not being able to find white doctors. They blame it on DEI but even without the DEI, their kids will not get higher chances because in a merit based process Asian will fill all the spots.

Asians consistently fail holistic admissions. It’s not racism but rather being one dimensional.

It's not being one dimensional but rather racism.

Cope harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We all know many colleges discriminate against Asians and whites. It is a liberal trend that current administration tries to revert. Not because they care about law, or fairness, but because they care about predominantly white maga base. What maga doesn't get is that with a pure merit based adminission, top schools like Yale or Harvard will be 80%+ Asian. And it is not because Asian kids are smarter but because they work harder being pushed most of the times by their families. That's the reality like it or not.

Why would maga care if a lot of doctors are Asian? Does maga have respect for doctors of any race?

You didn't get it. Maga care about their white kids not getting into colleges and about them not being able to find white doctors. They blame it on DEI but even without the DEI, their kids will not get higher chances because in a merit based process Asian will fill all the spots.

Asians consistently fail holistic admissions. It’s not racism but rather being one dimensional.

It's not being one dimensional but rather racism.

Cope harder.

Like the Jews back in the days?