Commentary

Members of Congress Push Pro-DEI Resolution—And Medical Orgs Line Up Behind It

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • May 24, 2024

States across America are rolling back the pervasive influence that DEI has had in medical schools across the country. Some members of Congress, on the other hand, have rushed to its defense. And medical organizations have their backs.

Last month, five members of Congress introduced a resolution, H.Res.1180, entitled “Recognizing the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in medical education.”

It contains the predictable platitudes. Among these are particularly dubious claims about racial concordance between providers and patients leading to better healthcare and the importance of DEI principles in medical education.

How many times must the disproven notion of racial concordance be disproven? Laymen and providers alike should understand that a patient’s access to high-quality care is far more predictive of health outcomes than access to care from providers of the same racial backgrounds. Increasing the quality of care and access to that care, not segregation, should be the priority.

And, of course, the resolution features the predictable contradiction that “discrimination, bias, and racism in medical education directly impacts the delivery of equitable health care throughout the United States,” as if DEI represents the repudiation, rather than the continuation, of discrimination, bias, and racism.

Concerned providers and members of the public have grown accustomed to virtue signaling and silly resolutions in Congress. But what might surprise some are the groups standing behind it.

Figure 1. From “e-Dear Colleague” email sent to members of Congress by Reps. Joyce Beatty and Kathy Castor on May 8, 2024.

More than two dozen major medical organizations in the United States have signed on to “endorse” this radical resolution. These include notable entities like the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the American College of Physicians (ACP), the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and more.

Unfortunately, these groups have publicly weighed in on the side of DEI many times. For example, the AAMC has previously come under fire for advancing critical race theory on students, while also training physicians to become activists for DEI. Similarly, AACOM has pushed DEI policies in its accreditation standards for colleges of osteopathic medicine.

This resolution has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where it is likely to remain in limbo for some time.

Indeed, several members of the committee have co-sponsored Rep. Greg Murphy’s EDUCATE Act, which would ban DEI in medical schools which receive federal funding. Of course, the AAMC and other medical organizations have lobbied against the EDUCATE Act.

Dues-paying individuals in these organizations would do well to remember what these groups stand for and do with their resources when asked to renew their membership. And policymakers unamused by this resolution and these medical organization’s pro-DEI stands should remember this moment when these organizations lobby for more power and money.