Staff Reports
The Justice Department has dropped a bombshell on one of the nation’s biggest public universities: its medical school allegedly ran a “side door” that let applicants jump ahead of the normal review — and race appears to have been the key. This isn’t a garden‑variety gripe about fairness. It’s a formal DOJ findings letter saying Ohio State University College of Medicine’s admissions process produced racially biased outcomes and may have violated federal civil‑rights law.
DOJ’s findings: a real “side door” and Super Screeners
The Civil Rights Division, led in this matter by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, says investigators found two main problems: a separate admissions pathway that let some candidates bypass initial screening and interviews, and a class of reviewers called “Super Screeners” who were allowed to see race and related information while ordinary screeners were not. The DOJ calls that combination dangerous. If decisions are being made out of sight and the people making them know applicants’ race, you can’t pretend the system is neutral.
The numbers are blunt — and embarrassing
Numbers don’t lie. The DOJ’s statistical analysis shows stark disparities: in the 2025 cycle, Black applicants were roughly 7.7 times more likely to reach the interview stage than comparable Asian applicants, and 4.6 times more likely than comparable White applicants. Among those who were screened and interviewed, Black applicants were about 2.8 times as likely to be admitted as similarly credentialed Asian applicants. The DOJ also found that in the 2024–2025 period Black applicants who used the “side door” had four times the admission odds of comparable White applicants — and no Asian applicants got in through that pathway. That’s not an accident. That’s design, or at least a system that looks a lot like one.
Law, loopholes and the “Holistic” cover story
Ohio State says it doesn’t consider race and will contest the DOJ’s findings. That will be its right. But the Justice Department points to how the school weighted attributes and experiences more heavily than metrics like grades and MCAT, and to use of a socioeconomic‑disadvantage score that appears to track race. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, universities can consider hardship and context — not create backdoors to achieve race‑based outcomes. If a metric is being used as a proxy for race, the university will need to explain, under oath, how that happened and why anyone thought that was a good idea.
What comes next and why everyone should care
The DOJ is seeking a voluntary resolution — and promises litigation if OSU won’t clean house. That’s an important enforcement step. Medical schools train doctors who will hold life-and-death responsibility. Admissions must be merit‑based and transparent, or public trust evaporates. Students, taxpayers and patients deserve to know that who gets into med school is decided fairly, not by opaque “Super Screeners” or mercy passes in a secret doorway. Ohio State should publish the records, explain the side‑door approvals, and stop hiding behind feel‑good diversity slogans while jeopardizing fairness and competence.
