What Supreme Court ruling on admissions means for med schools

The Supreme Court of the United States has made a ruling in a case considering race as one factor in academic admission, which allows medical schools to create a more racially and ethnically diverse physician workforce that more closely reflects the patient population and can combat racial disparities in health outcomes. Where the case began and its result In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, Abigail Fisher, a white applicant, was rejected from the University of Texas undergraduate college and sued the university, asserting that the school preferred African-American students over whites and that she would have been accepted if racial preferences were not in place. In 2013, the Supreme Court held that the University of Texas could potentially use racial preferences in its admission decisions under limited circumstances, known as “strict scrutiny.” The Supreme Court remanded the case to the court of appeals for determination of whether the University’s racial preferences met the strict scrutiny standard. On remand, the court of appeals confirmed its earlier ruling, which had approved the racial preferences. The latest Supreme Court ruling affirmed the court of appeals application of the strict scrutiny standard to the University of Texas admission policies. “The goal of increasing medical career opportunities for minorities is an important step in developing a diverse physician workforce that will help bridge the gap in racial health disparities,” sai...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news