University of Arizona Med School Quietly Rebrands Its DEI Office

The University of Arizona College of Medicine at Tucson has quietly removed large chunks of its website overtly pledging support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

At first glance, this would seem to be good news. But a closer review indicates this is more a rebrand than a significant shift in institutional posture. 

According to archives of the College of Medicine’s website, the school listed a “Diversity and Inclusion” office under its administrative offices up until February 14.

However, at some point between February 14 and today, the Diversity and Inclusion office was removed from the listed administrative offices. In its place is the Access, Community and Belonging office.

Additionally, at some point in 2024, the link to the Diversity and Inclusion office began to redirect to the Access, Community and Belonging office before the Diversity and Inclusion office was completely and officially removed.

The webpage for the older Diversity and Inclusion office appears nearly identical to the version of the webpage for the Access, Community and Belonging office that existed before February 14, and the offices are run by the same administrative official, Celina Valenzuela, MD.

In its effort to rebrand its DEI efforts, the College of Medicine scrubbed several DEI resource pages from its website; they are no longer accessible via the Access, Community and Belonging office webpage.

These include the school’s diversity statement, which pledged to advance diversity through “educating, training, and employing diverse faculty, staff, and student body” and “encouraging and supporting culturally responsive scholarly activities that acknowledge and respect systems of healing that emerge from different traditions.”

Additionally, the school scrubbed its DEI “Recruitment” section that advertised its DEI scholarship – open to “underrepresented” students.

The DEI “Retention” page is also removed, as is the “Obtaining DEI Credits” page that recommends DEI trainings on topics including microaggressions and implicit bias. The section further recommends faculty and staff take the Implicit Association Test to better understand their implicit biases. (Of course, the Implicit Association Test is not predictive of real-world behavior or prejudice.)

However, some vestiges of overt DEI and discriminatory practices remain.

Take the Spurring Success for Women in Medicine & Science (SSWIMS) fellowship, which makes it clear who the school has in mind for the award: “Women, groups underrepresented in medicine and science, and candidates who are diverse in other ways are encouraged to apply.”

Ultimately, it appears this rebrand is an attempt to publicly downplay the school’s more explicit endorsements of DEI ideology while still retaining its substance. The University of Arizona should instead ditch its DEI programs altogether.