Red State Med School Grills Faculty on Their Commitment to DEI

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) appears intent on continuing its long tradition of imposing divisive and radical practices on its faculty. 

The university’s neuroscience department recently distributed a questionnaire gauging faculty’s opinions on structural racism in the medical field and within the department itself. The so-called “climate survey” first states that society takes for granted “white leadership, dominance, and privilege” that works to “preserve gaps between white Americans and Americans of color.”

What better way to bias a survey’s results than by leading the respondent right from the start?

Proceeding from this faulty premise, the survey asks respondents how well the neuroscience department has done advancing wokeness – such as the “understanding and mitigation of unconscious bias and promote diversity, equity and inclusion” and whether the department has sufficiently hired “underrepresented minorities at all levels.”

In other words, the department is evaluating its success in promoting practices that explicitly prioritize race over merit.

These activities belong nowhere near a medical school. There is no evidence that medical practitioners’ racism is creating these “gaps between white Americans and Americans of color,” and a wealth of evidence shows that patients’ health outcomes are no better when they are treated by physicians of the same race.

Yet the survey is ultimately a reflection of a broader trend within MUSC.

For instance, a MUSC flyer advising best practices for recruitment instructed faculty to acknowledge their “implicit bias” that may influence their hiring decisions. The flyer further urges faculty to take “an online Implicit Association Test (IAT)” to gauge their own unconscious prejudices.

Research has consistently shown IATs to be unreliable; a 2013 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that IATs were “poor predictors” of real-world bias and discrimination.

Yet that’s not all; MUSC, like many other medical schools, is asking prospective faculty to detail their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Do No Harm obtained guidance for neuroscience department administrators on how to construct faculty job postings. The guidance stipulated that job postings should ask applicants to submit a statement on their “commitment to DEI.”

A candidate’s commitment to DEI is irrelevant when considering their suitability to teach medicine and should have no bearing on their eligibility. 

But MUSC seems determined to prioritize adherence to woke ideology over aptitude.

South Carolina lawmakers launched an effort earlier this year to prevent universities from asking for DEI statements in faculty applications, but the bill stalled out in the legislature’s upper chamber.

MUSC is no stranger to woke medicine; in 2020, the school publicly announced its goal to “become the preeminent model for inclusion and equity, setting a national standard among academic health systems.”

It seems these documents are further evidence of how deeply committed the school is to radical identity politics.

Do No Harm previously obtained documents showing MUSC had spent $370,000 to hire a Chief Equity Officer, paid $45,000 for a series of woke speakers on campus, and hosted a day-long seminar that promoted racial discrimination.

Moreover, MUSC faced a federal investigation for offering discriminatory diversity fellowships, which ultimately led the school to alter the scholarships’ eligibility criteria.

Why is a medical university so obsessed with identity politics instead of focusing on educating its students about medicine? 

MUSC is best served ridding itself of these practices and going back to teaching students how to be medical professionals. That is the best way to maximize the institution’s value to society.