The Trump administration is requiring Texas Tech's med school to cease considering race in its admission process


The Trump administration just scored a victory in its fight against affirmative action.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center will no longer factor in an applicant's race when deciding on admittance to its medical school. Per The Washington Post, Texas Tech's decision is the result of pressure from the White House, which is seeking to "curtail" the use of affirmative action in education, and signals the approach that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will likely take with other schools going forward.
Texas Tech reportedly agreed to the change in February, striking a deal with the U.S. Education Department after its Office for Civil Rights concluded a 14-year-old investigation into the university's use of affirmative action.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In July, the Education Department revoked a set of guidelines implemented under the administration of former President Barack Obama that explained how "schools could legally weigh race as one factor to achieve diversity," despite the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that universities could use affirmative action to increase on-campus diversity. But the Education Department pointed to a loophole in the most recent ruling in 2016, which stipulated that the schools must continually review their affirmative action policies. The Education Department argued that Texas Tech was not doing so, and, therefore, might not have been properly considering other factors, such as socioeconomic status, that could contribute to increased diversity.
The Education Department did not ask Texas Tech to conduct such a review before requiring the elimination of race from the admission process, however, per the Journal.

Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.