FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AACE Applauds DOJ’s Findings on UCLA Medical School and Urges Unfairly Rejected Asian American Applicants to Support Federal Investigations into Medical School Admissions and Stanford’s Hiring Practices
May 7, 2026, Livingston, NJ — The Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) today applauds U.S. Department of Justice’s Investigation results on UCLA’s Medical School and called on Asian American students and job applicants who were unfairly rejected by medical schools, Stanford University, or University of California campuses to file discrimination complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). This call is featured in AACE’s Spring 2026 Newsletter, distributed to more than 20,000 supporters and community leaders nationwide.
Asian Americans make up 22–24% of all U.S. medical school applicants, the largest share of any racial group. Yet data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) show that Asian applicants receive the lowest admission rates at the same MCAT score levels. At several elite medical schools, Asian applicants scoring in the 95th percentile were admitted at significantly lower rates than applicants from other racial groups with comparable—or even lower—scores.
Discrimination also extends to faculty hiring. Many highly qualified Asian scholars apply for teaching and research positions at Stanford and other elite institutions. Asian men, in particular, are frequently disadvantaged under DEI‑driven hiring frameworks that prioritize identity categories over academic merit. These practices undermine fairness and violate federal civil rights laws.
On March 25, 2026, the Trump Administration opened civil rights investigations into alleged discrimination at the medical schools of Stanford University, Ohio State University, and the University of California, San Diego.
Separately, on April 29, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education opened a Title VI investigation into Stanford’s Graduate School of Education for restricting a teacher‑certification program to individuals who “identify as a person of color.” A prior federal investigation into Stanford’s undergraduate admissions extended to UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine.
On May 6, 2026, after one year’s investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) determines UCLA’s medical school discriminated based on race in admissions. “UCLA’s admissions process has been focused on racial demographics at the expense of merit and excellence — allowing racial politics to distract the school from the vital work of training great doctors.” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Racism in admissions is both illegal and anti-American, and this Department will not allow it to continue.”
AACE welcomes these federal actions as important steps toward eliminating discriminatory DEI‑based practices and restoring meritocracy in American higher education.
AACE urges the Asian American community to support ongoing federal efforts to eliminate racial discrimination in college admissions and hiring. The Spring 2026 Newsletter provides a direct link for Asian American applicants to file complaints with the U.S. Department of Education.
AACE President Yukong Zhao stated: “Asian Americans have suffered the most from affirmative action and DEI‑based policies. Our community played a leading role in supporting the SFFA lawsuits that ended race‑based college admissions in 2023. Today, we must lead again—by supporting federal efforts to eradicate racial discrimination in admissions and hiring.”
Asian American Coalition for Education
MEDIA CONTACTS:
- Sam Yan, telephone: 703-470-3292; email: samuelyan@msn.com.
About the AACE: www.asianamericanforeducation.org
Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) is a non-political, nonprofit, grassroots national alliance with over 300 partnering organizations nationwide. Since 2015, AACE have been mobilizing Asian communities to stand firmly behind SFFA in its lawsuits against Harvard and UNC. AACE helped expose the Ivy League college’s anti-Asian discrimination on the national stage. Over the last nine years, AACE teamed up with over 360 Asian American organizations, organized the Boston Rally in 2018 and “Equal Education for All” rally in 2022, encouraged Asian American students to join SFFA’s lawsuits, and filed five amicus briefs. Besides supporting SFFA, we have advanced the cause of equal education rights for the Asian-American community in many other areas, including federal adoption of AACE policy recommendation on college admissions in July 2018, federal lawsuit against Yale University in 2020, support to Asian Americans’ fights for equal education rights in Maryland, New York, Washington, California, Massachusetts and other states. AACE is the proven leader in fighting for Asian-American children’s equal educational rights.