AFL recently filed a complaint urging the DOJ to investigate the School of Medicine for its DEI practices. (Sam Powers｜Student Life)

On Sept. 15, 2025, America First Legal (AFL) filed a complaint against WashU’s School of Medicine for its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices, asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the medical school’s alleged “illegal DEI practices.”

“In practice, WashU has transformed its medical school into a DEI indoctrination training camp. The integrity of American medicine cannot be sacrificed to appease ideological orthodoxy,” AFL wrote.

In its complaint, AFL alleged that WashU medical school is in violation of several federal laws and statutes, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, several Supreme Court precedents, and President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

Founded in 2021 by Stephen Miller, the director of speechwriting under Trump, AFL is a nonprofit law firm “founded to unapologetically and boldly defend the rights of everyday Americans,”per its mission statement. AFL prioritizes dismantling DEI and has previously filed similar complaints against universities across the nation, including Colorado State University, Ohio Northern University, and Harvard Medical School.

“As Missouri’s flagship university and one of the nation’s most influential medical schools, WashU carries national importance,” AFL wrote in their complaint. “When WashU abandons merit in favor of discrimination, it corrupts the physician pipeline, undermines public trust in medicine, and directly violates the law.”

This complaint arises amidst Trump’s attacks on DEI policies at elite universities across the nation, which have resulted in several high-profile legal battles as well as significant cuts in federal funding.

Over the past year, WashU has anticipated being impacted by these funding cuts, discontinuing several projects, including the construction of Riney Hall. Chancellor Andrew Martin sent out a financial update on Sept. 30, detailing the external and internal pressures which led to the elimination of more than 300 staff positions.

Earlier this year, Trump’s administration threatened to withhold $400 million from Columbia’s endowment in March, for allegedly failing to “comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. 

In addition, proposed federal policy changes, including a cap on research funding, could reduce WashU’s indirect funding by over $100 million, affecting potentially hundreds of ongoing projects funded by the National Institutes of Health. WashU’s Medical School had the second-highest amount of funding allocated by the NIH in the 2024 fiscal year. 

“We’re still facing significant uncertainty about potentially drastic reductions in federal research funding,” Martin wrote in the Sept. 30 email. 

In its complaint, AFL asked the government to leverage federal funding to ensure compliance, saying that the DOJ should employ “every tool at its disposal.” 

“The American people should not be forced to subsidize illegal discrimination that rigs the physician pipeline and undermines the quality and fairness of our healthcare system,” Megan Redshaw, counsel for AFL, wrote in an email comment to Student Life. 

WashU’s Vice Chancellor for Marketing & Communications, Julie Flory, declined to comment on legal matters. 

In medical education, DEI typically refers to a university’s holistic admission processes, which considers an applicant’s background experiences as well as their academic grades and scores. DEI aims to provide further opportunities for those facing challenges regarding socioeconomic status and underrepresentation. 

Since 2016, WashU medical school’s DEI programs have doubled the percentage of students underrepresented in medicine to 31%, according to its website. Moreover, 17% of the entering class of 2023 came from “socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds,” and 7% were first-generation students.

Earlier in August, Student Life reported that six WashU schools removed their individual DEI pages from their websites. Of the eight schools, only the School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Medicine kept their pages available. 

Following the AFL’s complaint, WashU medical school removed the “Progress” section from its DEI webpage on Sept. 16. 

In her email comment, Redshaw described WashU medical school’s DEI programs as an “ideological crusade” which prioritized educating students about diversity over teaching medicine. 

“When schools condition opportunity on race and sex and embrace radical DEI policies, they don’t produce better doctors — they produce activists in white coats who carry bias into the healthcare field. This does not serve students, and it does not serve patients who deserve the best doctors,” Redshaw wrote. 

On Sept. 30, AFL issued a press release titled “First Legal Uncovers Millions in Taxpayer Dollars Funneled by the Biden Administration to Washington University to Embed Illegal Discrimination into Medicine.” 

The press release alleged that more than $21.6 million of taxpayer money allocated by the Joe Biden administration was spent on “unlawful” DEI programs, which included a “multi-level school Intervention for LGBTQ youth,” as well as a “neurosurgeon research career development program.” The AFL described the latter as a “pipeline program” designed to introduce diversity into hiring practices and leadership roles.

“Americans deserve a healthcare system built on merit and excellence,” Redshaw wrote in the AFL press release. “WashU is using federal grant dollars to push DEI ideology into healthcare and classrooms. That’s not science — it’s political indoctrination masquerading as research.”