Commentary

Duquesne University Opens New Osteopathic Medical School – But Puts DEI at the Forefront

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • April 2, 2024
  • Duquesne University College of Osteopathic Medicine

On January 13, 2024, Duquesne University announced that it was opening a new osteopathic medical school on its Pittsburgh campus. Consistent with the trends seen in medical schools today, its website announced its support for “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI). But when a medical school like Duquesne endorses DEI, it is not endorsing the ordinary meanings of the individual words. Rather, it is laundering a radical ideology using the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as cover.

Beneath DEI’s noble-sounding words lurks a terrifying reality: oppressed identity is more important than competence. Now, with recent evidence that osteopathic medical schools are embracing DEI, Duquesne now only the most recent case, DEI has spread through virtually all of medical education. So why is Duquesne moving forward with this agenda?

In July 2022, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)–the nonprofit responsible for allopathic medical school accreditation–published the official guidance document called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies Across the Learning Continuum”. This document states that America is currently governed by a “system of oppression” called “white supremacy”, and declares, “The call for an anti-racist health care system — one which recognizes and addresses the intersectionality of systems of oppression — amplifies every day. [sic]”

This is alarming and disorienting. Yet less than one year after the AAMC guidance was published, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) followed suit. In 2023, AACOM began requiring that every osteopathic medical school’s mission statement contain a political oath declaring fealty to DEI, and hire a full-time administrator trained in the political orthodoxies of DEI.

This brings us back to Duquesne University’s new medical school. On its website, it declared that it is “committed to increasing diversity within medicine”, which in practice means the selective lowering of achievement standards for certain favored groups. The website recites a standard catechism: “Studies show…”.

But ideology, not evidence, is leading the way here.

Among other things that the “studies show”, the Duquesne website states that: “health care professionals who share and understand patient ethnic and cultural backgrounds achieve better health outcomes for their patients.” This is called racial concordance theory. As we carefully documented, the preponderance of evidence rejects the idea that patients receive better care from doctors of the same race.

Duquesne also makes a sweeping appeal to “exhibit less implicit bias”, implying that physicians that are ethnic minorities have less implicit bias than whites. Yet the data on implicit bias theory are even more damning, with multiple studies clarifying that the implicit association test is afflicted with profound issues of reliability (whether scores are similar over repeated tests) and validity (whether scores predict real world behavior).

Figure 1. From the Duquesne University College of Osteopathic Medicine website.

But it gets worse. As part of its commitment to “diversity”, Duquesne’s website says it is committed to “attracting medical school candidates who have a basic understanding of the importance of DEI and a demonstrated desire to learn more.” This alludes to a dubious but widespread practice among medical schools of asking about an applicant’s agreement with DEI-related concepts in their secondary applications. As we reported last year, 36 of 50 top medical schools engaged in this practice.

There are a few ways forward to eliminate DEI initiatives in higher education, such as the ones that Duquesne is currently embracing. In 2023, anti-DEI legislation for America’s universities began sweeping across the country, especially in Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. A bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Dr. Greg Murphy called the EDUCATE Act would cut federal funding for medical schools that teach and promote divisive DEI concepts; compel students or faculty to take loyalty oaths such as in medical school applications; racially discriminate for scholarships, classes, or other opportunities; or maintain DEI offices, departments, or other equivalent bureaucracies or administrative positions. Duquesne University would be well-served by adopting this strategy, ensuring a more ideologically diverse–and scientifically inclined–student body while safeguarding the integrity of healthcare and the lives of patients.