America First Legal, a group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has asked the US Department of Justice to investigate alleged 'illegal DEI practices' at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In a letter to the civil rights division, the group accused the institution of systematically infusing race and other identity-based preferences into admissions, scholarships, faculty hiring, curricula, residency programmes, and governance.
The complaint specifically targets a financial aid programme offering full scholarships to students from families earning less than $300,000, funded by a $1bn donation from alumnus Michael Bloomberg in 2024. America First Legal claims this uses socioeconomic status as a proxy for race-based admissions, circumventing the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling ending affirmative action.
America First Legal attorney Megan Redshaw stated: 'Johns Hopkins has constructed a facade of legality around a deeply illegal system. They have replaced explicit race-based admissions with upstream sorting, downstream subsidies, and bureaucratic double-speak designed to preserve racial preferences. This is not only unlawful – it has no place in medicine where competence must come first.'
The group, founded by Miller in 2021, has previously won lawsuits against a Covid-era restaurant relief programme and CBS, and has supported parents opting children out of LGBTQ+ lessons. The complaint was addressed to Harmeet K Dhillon, head of the DoJ's civil rights division, known for her conservative legal activism.
Proponents of diversity in medicine point to research showing that a diverse workforce can reduce racial health disparities. A 2023 study found Black people in counties with more Black primary care physicians live longer. Currently, only about 5% of US doctors are Black, despite Black Americans comprising 14% of the population. Medical school enrollments from Black and Hispanic students have fallen sharply since the affirmative action ban.
