How DEI Continues To Destroy Medicine

The story

Whistleblowers from the University of California, Los Angeles’s David Geffen School of Medicine have gone public after the university refused to stop affirmative action in admissions — despite SCOTUS ruling it illegal.

Admissions staff say that affirmative action transformed UCLA into a “failed medical school.” Half of UCLA’s medical students fail exams that measure basic medical knowledge, up from just 5 percent before the dean — who is also the school's vice chair of DEI — was hired in 2020.

The scandal showcases the consequences of progressive efforts to promote diversity, ensure racial “equity,” and account for “systemic racism.”

Rejecting the Supreme Court ruling

Affirmative action in admissions is so deeply ingrained in universities that even the SCOTUS ruling couldn’t stop it — and it’s nothing new. California schools tried to maintain race-based admissions following the state’s affirmative action ban in 1996.

When the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in university admissions, top medical schools and associations announced plans to skirt the ruling by deemphasizing GPA and test scores. They now evaluate “holistic considerations” such as “personality, attributes, and experiences” to increase diversity.

The President of the American College of Physicians was not so subtle. In defiance of the ruling, he announced that medical schools “should consider a person’s race and ethnicity” in admissions. The American Medical Association (AMA) continues to recommend “just representation of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people in medical school admissions.”

Accreditation organizations still encourage medical schools to teach future doctors to be social justice advocates as part of a plan to “reorient” the AMA and all of healthcare “around equity.”

Course requisites across dozens of medical schools include training that medicine is systemically racist and that doctors must engage in “anti-racist practice.” Physicians are often required to take ineffective anti-bias training to cure them of racism.

Real-world effects

Under affirmative action, 56 percent of black applicants and 31 percent of Hispanic applicants to U.S. medical schools were accepted with below-average test scores between 2013 and 2016. That number was less than 10 percent for white and Asian applicants. The result of non-merit-based admissions is obvious — black medical students are 10 times more likely to drop out than their peers.

Research also shows a 0.2 percent higher patient mortality rate per decrease of one score point on medical exams. Acceptance of underqualified medical school applicants leads to unnecessary patient deaths.

The push to close racial disparities can cost lives on a massive scale. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued guidelines that recommended essential workers receive the vaccine before Americans over age 65 because essential workers were disproportionately people of color.

This policy was rescinded only after public outcry since it would have led to thousands of additional deaths, per the CDC’s own numbers. Still, many states and localities prioritized essential workers — with race in mind.

The government continues to try to implement race-based public policy in medicine. In May, the Biden administration announced plans to reward hospitals that provide more kidney transplants to black patients. Those that do not may be fined.

Dissent is stigmatized

Doctors at medical schools who criticize DEI are reported to administrators by students, face public denunciations, and may be fired — as was one kidney specialist in 2023 who spoke out.

The science of sex differences has also become a stigmatized topic. Faculty members fear being reported to administrators for using terms like “man” and “woman.” In 2018, a Brown University professor’s career was ruined after she published a study which posited that the massive increase in minors identifying as transgender was due to a social contagion effect — despite the journal in which she published admitting that the study contained no mistakes.

Race-focused research is difficult to publish if it doesn’t concede that all disparities are caused by racism. Methodologically flawed studies, such as one arguing that white doctors are inferior at treating black patients, have been published in prestigious medical journals.

Why it matters

DEI ideology encourages medical schools to expend resources on underqualified medical students and infuses ideology into medicine, research, and public policy to the detriment of patients within the healthcare system.

With 300,000 minors in the U.S. now identifying as transgender, what kind of care will they receive? The stigmatization of academic debate around trans issues has resulted in the U.S. remaining one of few countries in the world where puberty blockers are still recommended for minors — despite evidence that they are an ineffective treatment.