Medical School DEI Crisis: “It’s up to us to fight these battles … It’s not the students’ fault”

Medical School DEI Crisis: “It’s up to us to fight these battles … It’s not the students’ fault”

I recently was interviewed by Sandy Rios of American Family Radio, for her Sandy Rios 24/7 podcast.

I have been on Sandy’s show several times in the past, though not recently. So it was good to be back.

The topic was the crisis in medical education as documented at our CriticalRace.org project. This is the article of mine she refers to during the conversation, Most people don’t realize how bad the situation is in medical schools, worse than in general higher ed.

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Partial Transcript

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Sandy Rios (00:00):

Hi, this is Sandy Rios, and we’re gonna have a very important discussion today because it affects each and every one of you. If you ever go to the doctor, if you ever need healthcare, if you have a student who wants to be a doctor or a nurse, this affects you. It affects every single one of us. Our next guest says that medical school education is in crisis with social justice and race focused activism being imposed on students, faculty and staff. You won’t believe what we have discovered. I’m sure you’ve heard part of it, but you’re going to hear hear it in more detail today in just a second….

Rios (05:16):

…  So we’ve asked someone who’s tracking this very carefully to join us this morning. His name is Professor William Jacobson. He is, by the way, the founder and publisher of Legal Insurrection, which is just like it says, it’s like a, it is like an insurrection toward the move toward the left or the lurch, or the jumping off a cliff of the legal profession, whether it’s judges or attorneys.

They’ve done just great work reporting on the malfeasance in the courts with attorneys, et cetera. Bill is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He also was on the Cornell Law Faculty. I think that’s when I first actually interviewed you, professor, and you’ve argued lots of cases. Bill has had some important positions and done some very profound things in the legal profession. So when he speaks in critique, it has weight. And so I’ve asked him to join us this morning because they are tracking medical schools around this country to see where they stand on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Good morning, professor Jacobson. Thanks for joining us.

WAJ (06:54):

Good morning. Thanks for having me on.

Rios (06:56):

Why in the world did you start tracking medical schools? Did something come to your attention? Something in particular?

WAJ (07:03):

Well, criticalrace.org was really an outgrowth of the activism post George Floyd. And we began to realize that these ideologies had permeated higher education. So we started off with 220 higher education institutions, we’re now up to over 500, but we also started to get tips about what was going on in the medical community and the medical schools. And so we started that and we now have covered, we have a whole separate database, an interactive map, which covers all 156 domestic US medical schools.

And what we found is that CRT/DEI, whatever you want to call it, I call it the racialization of education, is deeply permeated throughout medical schools. And in some ways, it’s worse in medical schools than in higher ed in general. So we found out about it because we were interested more generally in the education topic, and then we started to get complaints and tips from people about medical schools.

Rios (08:09):

So you report in your article, which is what I’ve used to prep for you today, among other things, I think, did you say that there are like 156 medical schools in this country? Is that right?

WAJ (08:24):

That’s right. MD schools, so there are osteopath schools that are not in our database. That might be a next step for us, but 156 domestic US medical schools, there are some in some of the Caribbean islands, they are not included. So these are schools located in the United States.

Rios (08:44):

So, and you say 70% of those schools have embraced and are implementing or practicing orr indoctrinating through DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, or critical race theory. Alright, so here’s the thing. Of course, professor people don’t really on these initials. They’re used to them. They hear them, but they don’t really know what this means when it’s applied to medical school. So what, what does that look like? What does, what does it look like first for the students? What does it look like?

WAJ (09:16):

Well, to a certain extent, it looks like what we see in higher ed in general. So, mandatory courses in many cases, sometimes voluntary training that  teaches people, we are a systemically racist country, that it can’t be fixed. That, and the way to undo those negative impacts on society is to give preferences, to give racial preferences to non-whites, and particularly to blacks and Hispanics, and that is the remedy.

So it’s very much what goes on throughout higher education, but it’s taking place in medical school. And that has enormous real world implications, because if you’re going to prioritize somebody for medicine based on their skin color or ethnicity, you’re not treating people as individuals. You’re treating them as proxies for groups. And so that’s happening in medical schools. And, we’ve documented it. Our database has all of them, and every single thing we say in there is documented with a source link to the medical schools and an archived link in case that link went bad.

So we’re not just saying it’s happening. We have documented it hundreds of times with regard to medical schools and thousands of times with regard to higher ed in general. So that’s what’s happening. It’s the same DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion agenda you see elsewhere.

And just so people understand all these acronyms, so Critical Race Theory is the theory. It’s a theory that we’re a systemically racist country. It’s a theory that there is no, essentially the legal system is meant to perpetuate racism as well as other systems in society, such as the medical system. That’s the theory. The way it is put into action is through what’s called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. So they’re essentially the same thing, but one is theory and one is action. And it’s the actions that we’re mostly documenting what is being actually done in the schools for this.

***

WAJ (12:24):

… that’s the poisonous atmosphere that they’re creating, and it carries over to actual medical care. So when two people walk into an emergency room, you should treat each one as an individual. What is their personal medical history? What is the personal medical condition they have? And you should prioritize that care without regard to race based on who needs it most. But that is not what’s happening….

***

Rios (17:22):

Now let me just stop to give a commercial a little, a little bit for you, because you mentioned this, but your website where you’re actually collecting you, you are welcoming people for telling stories or bringing their information on what they’re seeing, and it’s CRT, and also then of course, you print that and it’s the information that’s available at criticalrace.org, that’s criticalrace.org. I think the question also, professor, is are they doing this in admissions? Are they screening students for their political views, for their color? Are they doing that?

WAJ (17:56):

I think there’s no question about that. I think  was, essentially, the Harvard case that the Supreme Court decided, that was colleges, not medical schools. But if you read the diversity objectives, if you read these things on the medical school websites, it’s very clear they’re giving preferential treatment. Whether you can prove it as a legal matter and assert a legal claim based on it is a different question. But there’s no question that there is preferential treatment being given.They barely try to hide it.

***

WAJ (20:05):

… So [Ibram Kendi] has monetized the whole concept probably better than just about anybody else. And his leading book is called How to Be An Anti-Racist. And in fact, it was that book which became required, not required, recommended reading at Cornell University the summer of 2020 after George Floyd. My reading of that book for the first time is what eventually led to our criticalrace.org website, because his ideology is so horrendous. His ideology is, and to quote one of his most famous lines, or to paraphrase it, is that current discrimination is justified to remedy past discrimination and future discrimination is justified to remedy current discrimination. So he has set up an expressly discriminatory program and agenda, and that has been adopted a lot of schools, and it was Cornell’s use of that book and recommending of that book that eventually led me to create criticalrace.org.

***

WAJ (23:21):

… there are many of these DEI consultants, DEI speakers, DEI, activists who express open hatred of whites, what they call whiteness. whiteness in quotes, is actually a study topic in a lot of schools. And it’s held up as the paradigm of evil is whiteness. I’ve seen that even at Cornell. And so this is really poisonous stuff. And, you know, we have a another website called equalprotect.org, where we take legal action against these. So because we got so many tips ourcriticalrace.org website, we formed another entity, equalprotect.org, which is the Equal Protection Project, where we bring legal actions challenging it.

…. we focus on higher ed, but it’s in government and elsewhere how many openly discriminatory scholarships and programs there are in this country. We filed over 20 claims, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. So it’s really a problem. This whole CRT/DEI ideology is poisoning our society and is moving us away from our constitutional principle in the 14th Amendment that everybody is entitled to equal protection of the laws, is moving our way ourselves away from the Civil Rights Acts and from various laws throughout the country. And what’s most amazing is a lot, almost every one, I’d say every one of the institution where we found these discriminatory programs, has their own set of anti-discrimination rules that these programs violate. So on the one hand, they say we’re all against discrimination. On the other hand, they’re actually discriminating. It’s beyond amazing.

WAJ (26:03):

…. critical race theory, one of the defenses of it is, oh, that’s just a subject matter taught in law schools, so nobody hides it [in law school]. I would say that medical schools are worse because you don’t go to medical school expecting to study legal theories regarding race. You go to medical school to learn how to treat people or to do research or whatever it is. So I think it’s worse in medical schools than law schools because it is a recognized legal theory, critical race theory that is taught in law schools, most don’t require you take it, but do have it available. But you don’t expect that in medical schools. And that’s, to me, the big issue.

***

Rios (28:19):

… Professor, one last question. You were a teacher, and I’m assuming, I’m just guessing that you are a fine teacher and that you cared about your students. So there are students listening or parents of students listening. What would you recommend? How would you counsel them on how to survive in this kind of atmosphere? They find themselves into medical school, and they need to finish, or like, this is their life plan. How can they navigate this? How can they?

WAJ (28:49):

Yeah. Well, it’s tough. And I certainly can’t recommend to people that you become a dissident, that you object to it and all of that, even though maybe in a better world you’d be able to do that, because there’s a high personal price to pay. People need to make a decision what’s best for them. It’s a little different undergrad than medical school because there are, what, 2000 plus undergrads [schools], you have a lot more choices. You can investigate the schools, decide which school has the best atmosphere for you. You may decide now you want to go to school in Florida, not in New York State, because Florida’s getting rid of all this DEI stuff. And those, so people have choices. Medical schools, there are very few. It’s extremely difficult to get into a US-based medical school. And most students will simply take what they can get, getting into any US-based medical school is considered a prize.

And so people just go there and, and if it’s a negative atmosphere, they just deal with it. And I’d say each person needs to make their own decision. Most students that we interact with, most people we interact with, simply say they just keep their head down. They regurgitate whatever nonsense they’re expected to regurgitate. They don’t necessarily absorb it, they don’t necessarily believe it. They just go along with it to get through. And that it’s unfortunate that it comes to that, but for many people that that’s the logical choice, rather than putting your career online.

It’s really up to people like me to call attention to it. And thank you for bringing attention to this, to your listeners, it’s up to us. It’s up to us to fight these battles. It’s not fair to expect a second year medical student with their entire career on the line to be the one who stands up to this. I think that’s asking too much. Certainly if somebody wanted to, that’s fine, but I don’t think we can expect them to fight those battles because we’ve permitted these systems and these institutions to get the way they are. It’s not the students’ fault. And it’s really the rest of us in society who should be fighting against it.

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