A group of lawmakers has introduced a new bill aimed at banning diversity, equity and inclusion practices in medical schools.
“American medical schools are the best in the world and have no room for discrimination,” said Greg Murphy, a practicing urologist and Republican representative from North Carolina.
“The EDUCATE Act requires medical schools and accrediting agencies to follow colorblind admissions processes and prohibits coercion of students who hold certain political views. Diversity strengthens medicine, but not if it is achieved through exclusionary practices.
“American medical schools are the best in the world and there is no room for discrimination,” said Greg Murphy, a practicing urologist and Republican representative from North Carolina.
The legislation would remove federal funding from medical schools that “require students or faculty to adopt specific beliefs, discriminate based on race or ethnicity, or have offices of diversity, equity and Inclusion (DEI) or any functional equivalent”.
The bill has at least 35 cosponsors.
The nation’s 144 drug-granting medical programs generated total revenues of more than $180.4 billion in fiscal year 2022, including federal and other funding sources. Total federal research grants and contracts supporting medical education programs granting U.S. physicians with full accreditation were $26.0 billion that year.
In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Murphy and Stanley Goldfarb, a nephrologist and president of Do No Harm, warned that accrediting institutions are currently pushing medical schools to teach “political activism.”
“I’m not a Republican or a Democrat,” said Lee, who is African American. “But I have the good sense to know that the idea that present and future discrimination as a remedy for past termination is not only contrary to American law and the Constitution, but is also dangerously un-American.”
Republicans display board at press conference to introduce new bill
The Supreme Court, in a landmark decision last year, banned the practice of affirmative action in colleges and higher education.
But Murphy and Goldfarb, in their opinion piece, insist that medical schools continue to teach “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.”
At a news conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Goldfarb lamented that some medical schools have stopped requiring the MCAT, which he called “the best indicator of a student’s ability to become a doctor.”
“We have a responsibility to oversee education at all levels,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, a Cincinatti-area physician. “When we talk about medicine, that includes medical schools and residency training, much of which is funded by Congress, by taxpayer dollars.”
“We have a serious shortage of doctors right now,” Murphy said at the news conference. It is estimated that some 83 million U.S. citizens live in areas without sufficient access to a doctor.
“We definitely want as many people as possible, regardless of race, to apply to medical school and work hard to become doctors, but they can’t.” But students can’t believe they’ll be able to get into medical school simply because of identity politics.
The Republicans were joined by Tabia Lee, a former DEI faculty member in the California community college system and founding member of the advocacy group Free Black Thought.
“I’m not a Republican or a Democrat,” said Lee, who is African American. “But I have the good sense to know that the idea that present and future discrimination as a remedy for past dismissal is not only contrary to American law and the Constitution, but is fundamentally dangerously un-American.”
In 2021, 63.9% of practicing physicians identified as white, 20.6% as Asian, 6.9% as Hispanic, 5.7% as black or African American, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
When asked how banning DEI would compare that to the disproportionate 14 percent of African-Americans, black former NFL player Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, said: “The The answer is simple: teach them like everyone else. Let’s get rid of this idea that we cannot achieve. Give them learning opportunity and school choice so parents can place their children in the best schools.
Owens, who chairs the higher education subcommittee, noted that in 2017, three out of four black students in California could not read or write at standard level.
“That should be our concern,” Owens said. “If you don’t teach them to read or write when they’re younger, they won’t become doctors.”
“Once we stop believing in our children, they start to fail. So let’s take care of this education issue, you will find that 5 percent goes to 50 percent.