The brother of Mindy Kaling – creator and star of The Mindy Project on Fox – says he was accepted at a number of U.S. medical schools after portraying himself as black rather than Indian-American.
Vijay Chokal-Ingam, Kaling's older brother, said he decided to self-identify as black on medical school applications in 1998 and 1999 after finding himself wait-listed at several universities. His website says had a 3.1 GPA and scored 31 on the MCAT, the medical school entrance exams.
"I knew that admission standards for certain minorities under affirmative action were, let's say... less stringent?" he explained.
"Would you rather accept racism or defy those who want to discriminate against you? I chose the latter and applied to medical school as black," he posted on his website Almost Black, discussing his anti-affirmative action stance and his experiences struggling to get into medical school.
Chokal-Ingam was accepted at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, using his acceptance to highlight what he says is "wrong" with affirmative action.
"I got into medical school because I said I was black. The funny thing is, I'm not," he posted.
Chokal-Ingam shaved his head, trimmed his eyelashes, and started using his middle name (Jojo) after realizing his chances of being accepted into medical school were less likely under his true identity.
"Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African-American affirmative action applicant to medical school," he wrote.
He said he was invited to apply and was contacted for interviews at the medical schools of Columbia University, Vanderbilt University and George Washington University — under the guise of being a black man.
Chokal-Ingam reportedly dropped out of the St. Louis school after two years, and was then accepted into the MBA program at UCLA under his true identity as an Indian-American.
Chokal-Ingam is currently working on a book about his experiences and his anti-affirmative action position. "What started as a devious ploy to gain admission to medical school turned into twisted social experiment," he says.
"Racism is not the answer," he said, suggesting that the premises behind affirmative action are what's really racist. "It also promotes negative stereotypes about the competency of minority Americans by making it seem like they need special treatment."
His sister, born Vera Mindy Chokalingam, is reportedly not supportive of her brother's revelations or his stance on affirmative action.
"I love my sister to death," he said, while acknowledging her disapproval. "She says this will bring shame on the family."
