In a lawsuit, a student alleges that six Texas medical schools illegally account for race and gender in admissions.

TEXAS, USA – This story was originally published in the Texas Tribune and can be viewed here.

A white Texan who was rejected by six Texas medical schools filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday, alleging they illegally account for race and gender in admissions because they accept black, Hispanic, and female students whose academic record is worse than that of whites or Asians. applicants. .

Plaintiff George Stewart filed suit against the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, the University of Texas at Galveston Medical Division, the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, and the University of Texas. Texas Southwestern Medical Center, as well as their presidents, medical school deans, and admissions committees.

The lawsuit comes as a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to drop policies that allow race-based college admissions in two court cases last fall. The court is expected to rule on these cases this spring.

The lawsuits were taken to the high court by the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Enrollment, a non-profit organization led by Edward Blum. Bloom played a key role in a legal challenge to UT-Austin’s admissions policy, which was ultimately won by UT-Austin. The group is now seeking to overturn a 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger that upheld the right of American colleges to consider race in certain admissions.

In a new lawsuit against Texas medical schools, filed in U.S. District Court in Lubbock, Stewart is represented by America First Legal, a group formed by Stephen Miller, a former political adviser to former President Donald Trump, and Jonathan Mitchell, a former Solicitor General. for Texas and the legal architect of the state’s six-week abortion ban.

Stewart’s lawsuit alleges that the practice of admitting to six medical schools violates the US Constitution, including the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Stewart graduated from UT-Austin with a GPA of 3.96 and a degree in biology, according to the lawsuit. He scored 511 out of 528 possible on the admissions test known as the MCAT and applied to medical schools for two years.

After the schools turned him down, Stewart filed an open request for per-school admission data, which included the race, gender, GPA, and MCAT scores of every applicant who applied for the 2021-22 school year.

The lawsuit states that, based on data analysis, the average and average GPA and MCAT scores of black and Hispanic students were lower than those of white and Asian students. The lawsuit also says data shows that female students who are accepted have lower MCAT scores than male students.

“Data shows that each of the respondent medical schools prioritizes admissions to women, blacks, and Hispanic applicants, unlawfully discriminating against whites, Asians, and men in admissions,” the lawsuit says.

It also points to the policy of the John Seeley School of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston that the admissions committee seeks to admit qualified applicants who are underrepresented in medicine and economically disadvantaged.

A spokesman for the University of Texas declined to comment on the lawsuit. A spokesman for the Texas Tech University system said the system has not yet received the lawsuit and is not commenting on the upcoming lawsuit.

The lawsuit says Stewart is “able and willing” to reapply to each of the medical schools, but current policy prevents him from “competing on an equal footing with other applicants.” Stewart is asking the court to ban medical schools from considering race or gender when enrolling students and will require schools to select applicants “with reference to color and gender neutrality.”

This is the second lawsuit filed against the University of Texas by an individual represented by the group as it seeks to backtrack on affirmative action, which Miller called “illegal justice politics.”[y]” in the application.

In September, a UT-Ostin professor represented by America First Legal filed a class-action lawsuit against Texas A&M University, alleging that a new faculty scholarship program discriminated against white and Asian applicants. In December, the university’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, stating that the professor’s arguments were hypothetical because the professor had never applied for the program. and noting that he filed a lawsuit against the wrong persons.

Three weeks later, Professor Richard Lowry dismissed the claims against the university. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs and engages with Texans about public policy, politics, government, and nationwide issues.

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