AAMC: Medical Schools Should Keep Discriminating

The Supreme Court just said racial discrimination isn’t allowed in college admissions. So how is the Association of American Medical Colleges responding to the end of affirmative action? You guessed it: By calling for more racial discrimination.

The AAMC made this fact clear last week in a post focused on how to help “medical schools boost racial diversity in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.” It wants medical schools to continue looking at their student bodies through the lens of skin color. The transparent goal is to discriminate against some races in favor of others, sacrificing merit in the process.

The AAMC writes:

Nothing in the Supreme Court decision compels us to deviate from our goal of diversifying the health care workforce,” David Skorton, CEO of the AAMC, said during a webinar with medical school leaders this month.

In other words, racial discrimination shouldn’t go anywhere. The AAMC lists specific strategies that, it hopes, will let medical schools get around the Supreme Court’s ruling. The list includes:

• “Holistic review,” in which a medical school considers the “whole applicant,” a subjective process that makes it easier to conceal the consideration of race.

• “Considering essays to evaluate character strengths, career aspirations, or commitments to the school’s mission areas in ways that might include experiences or perspectives related to the applicant’s race.”

• “Expanding recruitment to, or building relationships with, undergraduate institutions and community-based organizations with high levels of diversity” (translation: high levels of certain racial groups).

• “Considering background factors tied to the school’s mission,” including coming from an underserved community or speaking multiple languages at home.

• “Allowing student groups to encourage people from specific populations to apply to medical school.”

Separately, the AAMC has said it will continue to send applicants’ racial data to medical schools via its application service. It remains to be seen whether the AAMC will let applicants decline to disclose their race, as other services, like the Common App, are doing.

In every instance, the AAMC is doing an end-run around the Supreme Court. The Court made clear that race can’t be a factor in admissions, including at medical school. The AAMC is so radicalized, it refuses to accept that.

This cannot stand. At Do No Harm, we’re going to keep calling attention to medical schools’ racial discrimination – and absurd workarounds will not stand up in court. It’s time to get race out of medical school admissions for good.

Is your medical school still looking at race in admissions? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.