America First Legal Files Civil Rights Complaint, Calls on DOJ to Hold Harvard Medical School Accountable for Ongoing Illegal DEI Practices

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) filed a formal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) supporting its ongoing investigation into Harvard University and calling for an immediate enforcement action against Harvard Medical School for its unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices.

The complaint alleges that Harvard is violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, multiple civil rights statutes, and President Trump’s recent Executive Orders by embedding race-, sex-, and identity-based discrimination throughout its medical school admissions, clerkships, scholarships, research initiatives, and affiliated residency programs.

Once considered the gold standard of American higher education, Harvard today is better known for defying the U.S. Constitution than upholding it. Rather than dismantle its “discrimination, exclusion, and intolerance” framework as the law requires, Harvard has chosen to rename, repackage, and redeploy the same unlawful practices under a new lexicon of euphemisms.

Under the veneer of holistic admissions, “societal themes,” and rebranded offices, such as “Community and Campus Life,” and the “Office for Culture and Community Engagement,” Harvard continues to elevate identity over merit, using race proxies to achieve the same racial balancing the Supreme Court struck down in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

“This is not only illegal, it is unethical. By using new labels to sustain the same discriminatory system and elevating identity over individual merit, Harvard is turning the training of physicians into a vehicle for demographic engineering and social activism,” said Megan Redshaw, counsel for America First Legal. “The American people deserve physicians chosen for skill and competency—not because they checked the right diversity box.”

AFL’s investigation uncovered, among other evidence of unlawful practices, the following:

• Harvard Medical School has embedded race- and identity-based preferences into its outreach, clerkship, and fellowship programs, reinforcing a broader admissions and training framework that prioritizes protected characteristics over merit, skill, and competency.

• Harvard-affiliated residency programs publicly emphasize DEI in residency recruitment and training.

• Harvard Medical School has embedded “societal themes,” which include DEI topics designed for “longitudinal curricular integration” across all coursework and clinical rotations.

• Harvard has attempted to evade federal law by rebranding its DEI offices, renaming programs, and embedding race-conscious policies under euphemistic labels like “inclusive excellence,” “health equity,” “community and culture,” and “community engagement.”

• Harvard structures promote the recruitment, enrollment, and advancement of “underrepresented in medicine” students, a category that excludes specific racial groups. 

“DEI in medicine is not a harmless fad but a direct threat to public health. When medical schools put identity politics ahead of merit, they compromise the quality of care, erode patient trust, and endanger lives, said Redshaw. “There is no room for racial engineering or social activism in the operating room.”

Read the full complaint here.

Find out more about our merit-based medicine initiative here. 

For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].

Follow us on social media for the latest updates on America First Legal’s fight to protect your constitutional rights!

America First Legal Foundation is an IRS-approved section 501(c)(3) public charity. Your donation to America First Legal Foundation is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.  

Unsubscribe from this list