Harmeet Dhillon Scrutinizes the Nation’s Medical Schools

Over the past two decades, the number of U.S. allopathic medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education has increased from 125 in 2004-05 to 154 in 2024-25. In those same years, the number of medical students increased from 67,296 to 94,061. Despite these substantial increases, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which oversees the HRSA Data Warehouse and compiles critical information on the state of the U.S. healthcare workforce, predicts a shortage of 141,160 full-time equivalent physicians in 2038.

HRSA projects a 2038 shortage across nearly all physician specialties in the U.S. More than one-third of U.S. adults lack a usual source of primary care, and 30 of 35 physician specialties are expected to have shortages in 2038. Shortages are anticipated to be greater in non-metro (rural) areas than metro areas. Another noteworthy deficit is that only 5.3 percent of U.S. physicians were Black, according to 2024 data, despite 14 percent of the U.S. population being Black. 

These numbers are concerning. Despite the inadequate size of our physician workforce and a lack of Black physicians, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) are coordinating to launch investigations into the admissions practices and policies of many of the nation’s medical schools. As of this writing, a total of 26 medical schools are under investigation, including (among others) Yale, Stanford, Ohio State, UC San Diego, UCLA, and UC Davis. The DOJ’s and DOE’s allegation is that the medical schools’ admissions programs discriminate against White and Asian applicants while favoring Black and Hispanic applicants, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI protects individuals from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin by programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. The penalty for Title VI violations may entail a loss of federal funding, on which nearly all medical schools rely.

In a February 2026 interview, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, Harmeet Dhillon, stated her opinion that among institutions of higher learning, the nation’s medical schools are the most noncompliant with the Supreme Court’s ruling in SFFA v. Harvard, which eliminated affirmative action in university admissions. Medical schools are high on her priority list for investigating possible racial discrimination in the schools’ admissions practices. She is concerned that medical schools are granting plus factors to Black and Hispanic students, which enhance their chances for admission, while disadvantaging students of other races and ethnicities. She insists on a colorblind approach, in which all admissions are determined independently of students’ race, and she is coordinating with the DOE to investigate the nation’s medical schools’ admissions policies to ensure compliance with colorblind admissions.

Among the most recent medical schools targeted is the nation’s fourth-oldest medical school, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine. Why Dartmouth Geisel is being investigated is perplexing. It is a small school with fewer than 100 students in the entering class. The Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the clinical facility affiliated with the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, provides essential medical care primarily to a non-metro region in northern New England. In 2025, the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine comprised 566 non-international students, of whom 8 percent were Black, 9.9 percent Hispanic, 23 percent Asian, and 48.9 percent white. The breakdown of the student body does not appear to suggest discrimination against white and Asian students or favorable treatment of Black and Hispanic students. Dartmouth Geisel appointed its first woman Dean, Jennifer Hunt, on Aug. 1, 2026. Dean Hunt, who believes in multidimensionality in the composition of medical school classes, faces her inaugural challenge: to manage a federal investigation into the school’s admissions program. 

It is worthy of note that Harmeet Dhillon previously attended Dartmouth College and, as a student, served as the editor-in-chief of the Dartmouth Review, a politically conservative campus publication. Among the articles she wrote for the Review was a 1987 article, “Dartmouth Admissions: The History of Increasing Compromise,” in which she argued that Dartmouth was lowering admission standards to achieve greater ethnic diversity. With this background, the admissions practices of Dartmouth Geisel are now under federal scrutiny motivated by the coordinated effort of the DOJ and DOE.

At a moment when the nation is facing a disturbing shortage of physicians, it is disconcerting that the federal government has chosen to threaten our medical schools’ admissions programs. Although Dhillon agrees that the nation needs more physicians, her investigations into the medical schools are an unnecessary hindrance. Admissions officers need to have sufficient autonomy to admit students of all races and ethnicities who, in their professional judgment, will become the best physicians for an increasingly multicultural society. The coordinated actions of the DOJ and the DOE will seriously interfere with this important objective, which is paramount to the health of the nation.