Why Does This Medical Publisher Need To Know Your Race?

The publisher behind The Lancet, one of world’s most prestigious medical journals, wants to know the race and gender of all its peer reviewers. Do No Harm reviewed the details, which are deeply concerning. This beacon of medical scholarship is fixated on race, when it should be fully focused on medical research.

The publisher is Elsevier, and its demands for reviewers are blunt. Before a medical educator or scholar can review a study being considered for publication – the tried-and-true process known as “peer review” – they must first fill out a diversity survey. If they refuse, they are not allowed to continue with their review. Apparently, their expertise doesn’t matter if they don’t first disclose their skin color.

Reviewers can choose from a variety of racial classifications, and if you answer “White,” you are further directed to choose “Western European” or “Eastern European.” The survey states, “You are not expected to undertake DNA testing, nor to use the results of such a test as your basis for answering.” It also says: “Selecting one’s racial identity as ‘white’ should not be misconstrued with nor is indicative of white supremacy in any way.” Yet it still sends the message that white reviewers are somehow biased and therefore unwelcome as reviewers.

How is Elsevier using this racial data? Its woke bureaucracy-babble doesn’t give a straight answer. The publisher says: “Your self-reported diversity data will be used to improve diversity and inclusion across journal editorial processes,” and “if there are opportunities to further advance inclusion and diversity, such as by enhancing outreach, we aim to take action to adopt them.” This raises the question of whether Elsevier is moving to ban or solicit scholarly reviewers based on race.

Such is the nature of woke ideology in health care. It inevitably leads to racial discrimination, while sending divisive messages to scholars and experts. The Lancet and Elsevier’s other medical publications are supposed to promote the best medical research. So why are they increasingly obsessed with race?

Have you seen discriminatory woke ideology at a medical journal or in medical research? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.