How Has American Constitutional Law Influenced Medical School Admissions and Thwarted Health Justice?

Abstract

Medical schools have sought to diversify their classes to motivate inclusion, to draw upon the educational benefits of diversification, to promote educational opportunity, to facilitate representation of persons with minoritized identities in the US physician workforce, and to advance racial and ethnic equity in health status and access to health services regionally and nationally in the United States. The US Supreme Court has allowed schools’ race-conscious admissions when their purpose is to diversify an incoming class but not to remediate inequity. This article explains why this limit to affirmative action laws’ implementation blunts medical schools’ capacity to do their part to secure health justice for all in the United States. Since the Supreme Court is poised to rule more narrowly on affirmative action law again, this article also considers key threats to health justice posed by further limiting or eliminating race-conscious admissions.