A former top-scoring medical school applicant has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that accuses the University of New Mexico of rejecting him because he is White.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in the District Court of New Mexico, Michael Jakiche says the Albuquerque school waitlisted him in 2024, despite acknowledging that his 99th percentile score on the Medical College Admissions Test was better than most applicants.
When Mr. Jakiche applied again after graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in biophysics from Arizona State University this year, the suit said the school rejected him again on the basis that “individual qualities” as well as “experiences and diversity” concerns outweighed his academic credentials.
The complaint cites that response as evidence of the Albuquerque school’s board of regents and administrators discriminating “on the basis of his race” against Mr. Jakiche, who is of Syrian descent.
He is seeking monetary compensation for his application and legal fees. His lawsuit also requests court orders requiring the medical school to reconsider his application and stop using race to evaluate applicants.
Specifically, the lawsuit says UNM violated a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that struck down race-based admissions in higher education, arguing that the school unconstitutionally favors some races over others.
Included in the legal filing is correspondence from an associate dean who repeatedly cited the school’s commitment to “diversity” in response to Mr. Jakiche’s questions about why he was rejected.
Attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center, a Texas nonprofit legal firm representing Mr. Jakiche in court, announced the suit in a Thursday news release.
“Universities have discriminated in admissions for so long, they apparently don’t know how to stop,” Reilly Stephens, a Liberty Justice Center senior counsel, said in a statement. “Even after the Supreme Court finally made it clear that rigging the system for preferred demographic groups is illegal, it’s proving necessary to remind these institutions of their responsibilities again and again.”
Chris Ramirez, a UNM Health System spokesman, rejected those claims in an emailed statement.
“While The University of New Mexico generally does not comment on litigation, we can tell you that UNM follows all state and federal anti-discrimination laws,” Mr. Ramirez said Thursday. “In accordance with federal law, the UNM School of Medicine does not use race or gender as criteria for admission. The UNM School of Medicine’s stated enrollment requirements emphasize that the School does not discriminate based on race, gender, or other protected classes.”
The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration has insisted on a colorblind interpretation of federal civil rights laws and instructed universities to admit applicants based on merit alone.
The conservative physician advocacy group Do No Harm recently flagged the UNM School of Medicine in a report as one of the five worst U.S. medical schools for still lowering academic standards to boost the number of racial minorities training as doctors.
Ian Kingsbury, director of Do No Harm’s Center for Accountability in Medicine, applauded Mr. Jakiche’s lawsuit against the school.
“The UNM School of Medicine is an ultra woke medical school where administrators fixate on identity box checking and leftist social activism,” Mr. Kingsbury said in an email. “It’s alarming but not surprising that their admissions process is alleged to run afoul of the Supreme Court’s decision to end racially conscious admissions policies.”
