One of the world’s top medical schools, the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has reportedly dropped in the rankings, with some faculty saying the drop was likely due to admissions decisions that “prioritize diversity over merit.”
In 2021, Jennifer Lucero, associate dean of admissions, was infuriated when admissions committee officials questioned whether a Black student whose grades and test scores were well below the school’s averages would be a good fit for the school, the Washington Free Beacon reported. report On Thursday.
“Don’t you know that African-American women have a higher mortality rate than other people?” Lucero said, before arguing that an applicant’s grades didn’t matter and that the school needed that kind of talent.
California public schools are prohibited by state law from considering race in the admissions process, so Lucero’s response offended some admissions officers, one of whom said it was “troubling.”
The media continues:
In the interview Free Beacon Following complaints to UCLA officials, including investigators from the university’s Office of Anti-Discrimination, faculty members with direct knowledge of the admissions process say UCLA prioritizes diversity over merit, resulting in an increasingly poor quality of the class that struggles to get in.
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Within three years of Lucero’s hiring in 2020, UCLA dropped from No. 6 to No. 18. US News & World Reportin medical research rankings. And some cohorts she admitted had more than 50 percent of students failing standardized tests in emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.
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“Race-based admissions has turned UCLA into a failing medical school,” said one former member of the admissions staff. “We want racial diversity so badly that we’re willing to cut corners to get it.”
Lucero’s biography on the school’s website To tell She is “actively involved in recruiting minority students into the medical profession through pathway and outreach programs.”
“As a Chicana physician, she has a special interest in issues of diversity in medicine and disparities in the provision of obstetric care to women of color,” the site reads.
school Website It claims to have developed an “anti-racism roadmap” and is committed to fighting “structural racism.”
According to reports, in March UCLA required first-year medical students to attend a lecture on “racial equality,” during which a guest lecturer got attendees to chant “Liberate Palestine.”
