States Can Ditch DEI At Medical Schools

Full steam ahead on state reforms.

That’s the message state lawmakers received on July 25th. Since the start of this year, they’ve been told that getting divisive and discriminatory woke ideology out of medical schools would jeopardize the schools’ accreditation. The threat stopped necessary reforms in multiple states, including Missouri, Utah, and Tennessee. But the threat isn’t real, as the main accreditor has now made clear.

This clarity comes courtesy of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, led by Rep. Virginia Foxx. The committee asked the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools, to explain what its “diversity standards” really mean. The Wall Street Journal broke the LCME’s response to the committee:

LCME is now [signaling] its diversity requirement is not as inflexible as schools have assumed. In a letter responding to a questionnaire from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, LCME says that “nothing” in the text “mandates which categories of diversity a medical school must use to satisfy this element.”…

That’s an opening for Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and other states looking for ways to get the DEI bureaucracy out of medical schools. The Missouri Legislature considered a bill that would have banned schools from “conducting DEI audits” or hiring DEI consultants, but it later backed off for fear the schools wouldn’t be able to comply with both state law and the rules of the national accreditor.

The LCME also disavowed pursuing any so-called “anti-racism efforts,” which despite the name, require racial discrimination. The LCME also denies that America is systemically racist, and it doesn’t require medical schools to teach such a lie.

The message to state lawmakers couldn’t be more clear: There’s nothing blocking them from getting woke ideology out of medical schools. Now that this threat is off the table, every state should pass sweeping reforms as soon as possible. Medical students – and the patients they will eventually treat – deserve swift action.