Report Uncovered Depth of University of Oklahoma College of Medicine’s DEI Efforts Prior to Executive Action

The University of Oklahoma’s College of Medicine (OUCOM) had demonstrated its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in recent years, earning recognition by the Association of American Medical Colleges for being among the top medical schools in the country for implementing DEI practices in its education. Indeed, the College’s promotion and expansion of these practices – alongside other Oklahoma institutions – prompted a January 2023 letter from Superintendent Ryan Walters, requesting the institutions account for “every dollar” spent on implementing these divisive policies. After discovering the extensive nature of DEI policies within these institutions, Gov. Stitt followed up Walters’ letter with an executive order in December 2023, banning these practices at publicly funded institutions in the Sooner State.

As state leaders were rightfully examining the scope and nature of DEI policies in its academic institutions, Do No Harm filed a FOIA request in 2023 to obtain the data and results of a 2022 survey, measuring performance against DEI metrics, conducted by the OUCOM.

The so-called Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) survey from the College of Medicine was part of a larger effort by the AAMC to pressure medical schools across the country to embrace controversial policies that discriminate against faculty and students on the basis of race, ethnicity, and other identity-based characteristics. A report by the AAMC touted its successful efforts to push the vast majority of medical schools to adopt radical identity politics as official school policies. Indeed, the AAMC provided a ranking of institutions surveyed, with the OUCOM scoring 77 percent – placing it slightly below the highest tier for participating medical schools.

Despite the College of Medicine’s failure to satisfy our FOIA request by supplying Do No Harm with the full documentation of the survey’s measurements and results, the limited pdf document provided by the College revealed the full extent to which the institution had shifted its priorities towards radical DEI policies.

Here are some of the practices that the College of Medicine had embraced:

• The College of Medicine has taken action to modify communications, branding, icons, or displays that may be perceived as non-inclusive. Under this policy, the College of Medicine intentionally adopted a set of standards based on diversity, equity, and inclusion that may conflict with the history and tradition of the institution.

• The College of Medicine adopted potentially racially discriminatory admissions practices under the guise of “holistic admissions practices.” Under this policy, the College of Medicine set different academic standards for candidates based on immutable “diversity” characteristics like race and ethnicity. These practices could have been used to systematically discriminate against more qualified applicants who do not belong to a set of identities that were deemed by university bureaucrats to need unequal, favorable treatment by the institution.

• The College of Medicine’s tenure and promotion policies specifically reward faculty scholarship and service on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics. Under this policy, faculty were encouraged to prioritize DEI-related instruction for the advancement of their careers.
• The College of Medicine provides financial scholarships to students based on racially discriminatory criteria. Under this policy, Oklahoma’s taxpayers were funding programs that disadvantage people of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds—namely, nearly eight out of ten in-state residents for whom the university was intended to serve.

The pervasiveness of the College of Medicine’s DEI policies rightfully drew concern from policymakers and the medical community in Oklahoma.

The College’s relatively high score also indicates that it had made significant strides in expanding its DEI footprint. Most of the areas in which the College received low marks were on data collection; in areas of governance, mission, DEI policies, institutional history, communication, and faculty promotion it received near perfect scores.

In a section of the survey in which the dean of the college responded to the results, the dean outlined a plan to improve future years’ scores by adopting a strategic plan based on the areas identified for improvement. A major component of that future plan included dedicated faculty and full-time staff devoted to the implementation of DEI programs.

While the DICE survey shows how far OUCOM had gone to indulge DEI, it also provides a roadmap those committed to reversing the direction of the College’s policies – particularly in light of Gov. Stitt’s actions – and formally root out these dangerously misguided policies.