The 1978 landmark case involving the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke ended the use of racial quotas in college and graduate and professional school admissions but upheld affirmative action. In 1996, the passage of Proposition 209 ended the use of “preferential treatment” to achieve diversity goals, essentially banning affirmative action at the University of California (UC). In 2001, the UC Regents issued a formal policy to support diversity, which led to an evaluation of admissions, hiring, and contracting practices at the University of California. UC Davis has played a leading role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at the campus and systemwide levels. The campus has taken a “diversity ecosystem” approach, developing a greater community understanding of the barriers to inclusion, encouraging discussion and debate, and promoting innovative thinking in developing solutions. Concrete steps included hiring academic and administrative leaders committed to achieving inclusive excellence and supporting grassroots efforts across the university community. Rather than a “one size fits all” approach, multidisciplinary teams of leaders led an analysis of the specific barriers to diversity across the campus community, including faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, graduate, professional, and undergraduate students. The approach was iterative—as one barrier was identified, addressed, and intervened upon, the relevant outcomes assessment led to further refinements and identification of additional barriers.  

Because UC Davis is part of a 10-institution UC system with shared practices, many interventions needed to be developed at the systemwide level before widespread adoption could occur as approved by the Office of the President. Critical systemwide interventions centered on undergraduate admissions switched from an algorithm-driven model based mostly on numerical scores (GPA, entrance exams) to a comprehensive (holistic) review, which considered such metrics as only one component of a more complex, nuanced assessment of merit and preparedness for postsecondary education. In addition to systemwide efforts, UC Davis also launched campus-specific programs to enhance diversity, three of which are presented herein:

1. The medical school launched a rethinking of medical school admissions, starting with the Association of American Medical Colleges holistic review framework and embarking on a series of incremental improvements including the development of a novel socioeconomic hardship score.
2. The ADVANCE Institutional Transformation award that helped create two key programs – the Strength Through Equity and Diversity (STEAD) implicit bias training workshops for hiring and searches and the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS), facilitating promotion and tenure of diverse faculty.
3. Despite increasing the enrollment of persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race (PEER) after implementing holistic review, gain in admission of Hispanic students lagged well behind percentages of eligible high school student graduates. In response, the Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) initiative was created to address barriers to application to postsecondary education for this key demographic group.

These interventions significantly enhanced the diversity of the UC Davis community. In 2023, UC Davis School of Medicine was ranked third nationally for diversity, earning a 2022 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity award. The novel medical school admissions practices and outcomes have garnered national attention and increased the fraction of PEER students from <10% before the intervention to 58% today. With the launch of CAMPOS and STEAD training, the fraction of Latino faculty increased from 2013 to 2023 by 78%. UC Davis’ largest undergraduate college, Letters and Sciences, has experienced an increase of PEER students of ~100% since the adoption of holistic undergraduate admission reviews.