High school student wins fight for equal access to UCSF hospital internship

Oakland, California; June 12, 2026: A high school student with dreams of a medical career ended a lawsuit this week after reaching a settlement with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland. The settlement ensures that the hospital’s prestigious healthcare internship program admits students without regard to race. Rebecca Hooley filed the lawsuit on behalf of her daughter, G.H., alleging that the hospital’s Community Health and Adolescent Mentoring Program for Success (CHAMPS) violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and California’s Proposition 209 by conditioning eligibility to the program on a student’s race.

“This is a victory for G.H. and all future students who want to apply to the UCSF program,” Andrew Quinio, attorney for Pacific Legal Foundation, said. “The CHAMPS program provides an exceptional educational opportunity for high school students. No student should be turned away because of the color of her skin.”

G.H. is a high schooler who has long wanted to pursue a career in medicine. She met every academic qualification for the CHAMPS program — a three-year internship where students shadow doctors, earn high school credit, and receive college preparation support. The only barrier was her race. She alleged that UCSF reserved the program exclusively for minority students and that non-minority students were ineligible to compete, regardless of their qualifications.

G.H. filed a federal lawsuit with the help of Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys challenging the program’s race-based eligibility requirements. The settlement ensures that all students may apply to CHAMPS on equal terms. A government-run hospital cannot use race to pick winners and losers among students seeking educational opportunity.

Pacific Legal Foundation represented Rebecca Hooley and her daughter, G.H., free of charge in Hooley v. UC Regents.