Justice Department says Ohio State medical school discriminated by race in admissions; university disputes findings

As of 9:24 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said Wednesday that Ohio State University's College of Medicine discriminated against white and Asian students in granting admission to its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

Ohio State disputed the findings. "Ohio State strongly disagrees with the findings," the university said in a statement, according to Reuters. The university said it is in full compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling and all federal and state laws regarding admissions, that the medical school does not consider race, ethnicity or any protected class during admissions, and that it will "contest these findings," Reuters reported.

What the department alleges

In a findings letter dated Oct. 21 and addressed to Ohio State's Office of Legal Affairs, the department said a compliance review found that the medical school "continues to intentionally discriminate against applicants based on their race" after the Supreme Court's decision "by granting and denying admission on the basis of race."

The letter describes what it calls "two principal pathways of discrimination." It says the school's standard screening process uses "Super Screeners" who are "not blinded to race," and that Black applicants who are screened and considered for an interview are about 2.8 times as likely to be admitted as Asian applicants with equal credentials, according to the department's analysis.

The letter also says the school operates a "side door" that admits some students who receive neither a screener score nor an interview. In 2024 and 2025 combined, it says, Black applicants who bypassed both of those stages were four times as likely to be admitted as white applicants with comparable academic credentials, and "no Asian applicants were admitted in this pathway at all."

The department said its analysis of admissions data from 2019 to 2025 found that, compared with white applicants with similar academic credentials, Black and Hispanic applicants had 3.3 times and 2.4 times higher odds of admission in 2025, respectively. The letter also alleges that the school adopted a socioeconomic disadvantage score modeled on one developed at the University of California, Davis, which the department describes as "a race proxy."

"Despite SFFA, OSU Med allows some applicants to bypass its own screening process and skip interviews solely because of the color of their skin," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said in a department news release. "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."

What the department says comes next

The letter says the department "seeks to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with the University to ensure that admissions practices are brought into legal compliance."

In its news release, the department said that where a violation has been found, it "will engage in settlement negotiations to ensure the school's admissions practices are brought into compliance. If those efforts fail, the Department will file suit."

Background

According to the letter, the department notified Ohio State of the investigation on March 25, 2026, sent a supplemental request for information on July 24, and based its findings on documents the medical school produced and other information it collected. The letter cites the department's earlier findings concerning the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, published June 10, 2026.

What is not known

The department has not publicly released the admissions data underlying its statistical analysis. It is not known whether Ohio State will enter negotiations on a resolution agreement or how it plans to contest the findings. Ohio State's response to the letter's specific statistical claims was not available. The department has not said whether it will file suit or on what timeline.