EXCLUSIVE —
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
efforts have become an integral part of the institutional fabric of a number of
Texas
medical schools
, featuring in admissions practices, university programs, and academics, a new report found.
The report was compiled by the medical watchdog group Do No Harm, which used publicly available information to detail the extent to which the University of Texas system, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, the University of Houston, Baylor University, and Texas Christian University incorporated DEI principles into their medical schools.
DESANTIS OUTLINES HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM PLAN AND CALLS FOR ABOLISHING DEI BUREAUCRACIES
“Although the Lone Star State is often associated with more traditional values and ideals, its major universities are not immune to the spread of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and anti-racism dogma that is so familiar in more progressive parts of the United States,” the group wrote in its report. “These destructive philosophies have worked their way into medical education. Medical students are indoctrinated with the idea that the entire healthcare industry is systemically racist, everyone in it is steeped in implicit bias, and its entire structure is designed to inflict harmful inequities and health disparities onto specific patient populations.”
The DEI practices detailed in the report include a number of programs and initiatives at the five University of Texas medical schools, ranging from maintaining no minimum standards for applicant GPA or MCAT scores at two campuses, promoting resources linked to critical race theory, and using a pass-fail system rather than a traditional grading scale.
At the Baylor College of Medicine, admissions committee members who interview applicants are required to complete an implicit bias training and an orientation program that covers “which qualities are to be evaluated” for each applicant. The school also created a “Race in Medicine Task Force” that says its goal is to “incorporate anti-racism curriculum content into all levels of education for Baylor medical students.”
The TCU Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine provides a training on microaggressions to department chairs and deans that labels “color blindness” and the “myth of meritocracy” as examples of microaggressions, the report found.
One section of the training indicated that saying “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” is an example of a microaggression.
Laura Morgan, the author of the report and a program manager for Do No Harm, told the Washington Examiner in an interview that the DEI efforts in Texas medical schools were “not the most egregious” examples the group has seen but were emblematic of the postgraduate medical education. The emphasis on DEI efforts, she said, could lead to bad outcomes for patients treated by less well-trained doctors.
“When you are using criteria of race [and] ethnicity over merits, then you’re lowering your admission standards,” Morgan said. “And when you’re accepting students who have a demonstrated lower academic ability and aptitude for the medical profession, then you’re naturally going to graduate physicians that may know everything about their unconscious biases and where to find their anti-racism resources, but they may not know anything about how your kidneys work because there’s so much time devoted to this agenda, to indoctrination, that it takes away from the clinical learning. … That’s not a good outcome that filters all the way down to the patient level.”
Morgan, who was fired from her position as a nurse for refusing to undergo implicit bias training, said in the interview that Do No Harm wants to see states pass laws that prohibit or limit DEI efforts in medical schools.
“Do No Harm is active at the state level to support legislation for this,” she said. “We have partnerships in several states where we’re helping them with model legislation on this, keeping the DEI agenda out of our medical school.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I just would really like for people in Texas to know that this is going on at the medical schools in the towns they live in or that they may be [alumni] of,” she added. “They need to know about this and let the schools know that they don’t approve.”
The Washington Examiner contacted the University of Texas system, the Baylor College of Medicine, and TCU for comment but did not receive a response.
