If you follow this blog regularly, you know I’ve written several times about woke ideology infecting medical schools. (Woke Medical Education Update 2024) Today, we have good news – some in Congress are pushing back.
Greg Murphy and Stanley Goldfarb, both physicians, have come together to change the direction of this dangerous movement. Dr. Murphy is a practicing urologist and a North Carolina Congressman. Dr. Goldfarb is a nephrologist and chairman of Do No Harm. They write in The Wall Street Journal: “The ideology of “diversity, equity and inclusion” is dangerous everywhere, but especially in medical education. Its influence has become entrenched nationwide. Accrediting institutions are pushing all of America’s 158 accredited medical schools to train future physicians in political activism, wasting precious time and resources that could be spent on rigorous coursework and preparation for medical practice. The result will likely be future physicians less qualified to meet patients’ needs.”
They say to restore medical education to its life-saving mission, Congress should ensure that taxpayer dollars don’t fund its decline. One of them, Rep. Murphy, will introduce the Educate Act on Tuesday. It would eliminate all federal funding, including student loans, for medical schools that engage in the worst DEI practices. Schools would have to agree to the following:
• No racist teaching. Medical schools teach about “intersectionality,” “colonization” and “white supremacy” while promoting the idea that people are either “oppressors” or “oppressed.” These concepts push medical students to treat patients differently based on race, sex or “gender identity.” In 2021 two physicians proposed giving preferential treatment to “Black and Latinx heart failure patients” at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.
• No racial discrimination. Medical schools increasingly offer scholarships, classes and programming designed for—and sometimes available only to—students of specific races. This includes “affinity groups” students can join voluntarily, as well as classes that segregate students for the sake of learning.
• No loyalty oaths. Medical schools routinely require applicants and faculty to write DEI statements as a condition of acceptance or employment. Such requirements violate freedom of speech and eviscerate merit. Schools reject candidates for not being “progressive” enough while choosing others for their devotion to DEI.
• No DEI offices. Most medical schools have a department, team or office dedicated to DEI. These bureaucracies exist to spread a divisive ideology across campus, from the curriculum to extracurricular activities.
They continue, “In addition to denying federal money to schools that engage in these practices, the Educate Act would prevent accrediting organizations, such as the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and the Association of American Medical Colleges, from requiring DEI education at medical schools.”
“Lawmakers and the public should recognize DEI for what it is: a dangerous and contagious philosophy. Until Congress takes action, this ideology will continue to corrupt the institutions that train physicians. Medicine and the people it’s meant to serve will suffer.”
Let’s be honest – no one cares about the color of the doctor’s skin! They only want to be sure he or she is well-trained and knowledgeable about their condition. If we lower the bar for minorities to get into medical school, what we’re really doing is denigrating the credentials of thousands of well-trained and talented minority physicians who got into medical school on the merits of their ability! Lowering the bar hurts them and their patients. It’s just not acceptable.
