Full speed ahead: The Trump administration launched a civil rights probe into UCLA’s medical school in March, accusing it of “informal admissions practices” that discriminate based on race. “Less than two weeks later,” our Aaron Sibarium reports, “UCLA instructed admissions officers to do exactly that.”
“On April 8, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, the medical school circulated a memo that outlined ‘guiding principles for student representation on the admissions committee,’ which includes third and fourth year medical students as well as faculty members,” writes Sibarium. “Those guidelines require the committee to consider race when picking students to serve as admissions officers” in an attempt to ensure “representation from those who identify as BIPOC and LGBTQ+.”
“The memo has a UCLA watermark and was sent to all second- and third-year medical students,” according to a source with knowledge of the matter. “It appears to have been approved by the medical school’s Faculty Executive Committee, which has oversight of admissions policy.” Lawyers who reviewed it, meanwhile, said the guidelines “were patently illegal and would be exhibit A in any kind of enforcement action against the medical school.”
Afghanistan’s terrorist windfall: We’re nearly four years removed from the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, and the repercussions are now coming into full view.
The Taliban, according to a new Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction oversight report, is flush with cash, having taken in $3.4 billion in the last year, a 14 percent boost. It’s also flush with weapons. The Taliban remains in control of roughly half of the $18.6 billion in U.S. aircraft, military vehicles, and weapons left behind in Afghanistan, the report states. It’s transferred much of the rest to terrorist affiliates, prompting a steady flow of fighters to travel to Afghanistan to join “one of over two dozen terror groups based there.”
“The findings come just months after the Trump administration terminated virtually all U.S.-funded assistance programs in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s ability to steal millions annually in American taxpayer cash,” our Adam Kredo reports. “The Biden-Harris administration pumped nearly $4 billion into Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country, with several million in previously allocated funds continuing to flow up until March 31 of this year. During much of this time, SIGAR repeatedly exposed instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that plagued U.S. aid efforts after the Taliban took power.”
Away from the Beacon:
- Harvard need not apply for new federal grants “since none will be provided,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told the Ivy League institution in a Monday evening letter.
- As Israel escalates its military campaign in Gaza in an attempt to compel Hamas to accept another hostage-for-ceasefire deal or face a full-scale invasion, Donald Trump “has effectively given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to do as he sees fit,” according to Axios.
- After Cornell canceled a pricey concert featuring anti-Semitic singer Kehlani, someone at the school defaced its famous clock tower with a massive “GAZA” banner.
- The Justice Department is investigating the Minneapolis-area prosecutor’s office after its leader, Mary Moriarty, ordered her subordinates to take a criminal defendant’s race into account when negotiating plea deals.