Medical schools with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives could lose federal funding under a new bill proposed this week in the US House of Representatives.
The legislation highlights a larger national backlash, largely led by conservatives, against considering race and ethnicity in higher education after the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action last summer.
According to the bill’s text, medical schools must not “establish, maintain, or contract with a [DEI] office, or any other functional equivalent.” They must also agree that they will not force students or faculty to acknowledge that “America is an oppressive nation” or that “individuals should be adversely treated on the basis of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin.”
If H.R. 7725 passes, noncompliant medical schools would no longer receive federal funding or be eligible to participate in guaranteed student loan programs.
Advocating for colorblind medical school admissions overlooks the racism that still exists in society, said Vanessa Grubbs, MD, MPH, nephrologist and cofounder of the nonprofit Black Doc Village. She told this news organization that bills like H.R. 7725 distract from the real work of diversifying the physician workforce to achieve equitable care for all.
“There’s a huge body of literature that shows when there is racial or cultural concordance, people have better satisfaction and health outcomes,” said Dr. Grubbs. “It’s really telling that the first thing the people dreaming up these bills say is that by having a diverse workforce, it automatically means that you have a less qualified workforce or that you’re lowering standards.”
The bill joins dozens of state legislative actions seeking to ban DEI principles in healthcare.
This week, Alabama legislators passed a bill prohibiting public universities from establishing DEI programs or using state money to sponsor events involving “divisive concepts.” If signed by the governor, the bill would go into effect on October 1, 2024, joining states like Tennessee and Utah with similar laws already on the books.
Industry groups are also grappling with anti-DEI sentiment. Earlier this month, the American Academy of Dermatology’s annual meeting took an unexpected turn when a member physician and 92 colleagues petitioned the academy to end its DEI programs, including scholarships and mentoring. A committee hearing the petition declined to send it to the Academy’s board.
Rep. Murphy, a urology surgeon who wrote a related editorial in the Wall Street Journal, argued that DEI ideology violates freedom of speech and allows medical schools to reject candidates for not being progressive enough. In the opinion piece, he and coauthor nephrologist Stanley Goldfarb, MD, referred to DEI efforts as “quackery” and a form of discrimination.
Dr. Goldfarb is the chairman of Do No Harm, a Virginia-based advocacy group that has pushed to eradicate “identity politics” in medical education and clinical practice. The group was instrumental in suing the Louisiana governor for a law requiring that minority candidates fill some state medical board positions. It also filed a complaint against the Medical Board of California on behalf of two physicians, claiming the state’s mandated implicit bias training for healthcare professionals violates their First Amendment rights.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning affirmative action, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy advising medical schools to consider race as a factor in admissions alongside other criteria such as test scores, grades, and interviews. The policy provides a “necessary safeguard” to diversify the physician workforce and advance health equity, the AMA said at the time.
The Association of American Medical Colleges supports DEI principles in medical education while advocating for race-neutral admissions practices like holistic review. This method considers the whole applicant, including their experiences, attributes, academic achievements, and the value they bring to the learning environment.
H.R. 7725 has 35 cosponsors, many of whom are physicians. Podiatrist and Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R) said in a statement that medical education should be “free of discrimination” and that the bill would prevent physicians from “being forced to pledge, affirm, or adopt tenets that have infiltrated higher education.”
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .