New Medical School Is Already All-In on DEI

A new medical school hasn’t even begun its classes, yet it is already fully onboard with DEI ideology.

D’Youville University College of Osteopathic Medicine (DYU-COM) is set to welcome its inaugural class in the fall of 2026. And already, the school has broadcast its intent to advance and implement woke policies, procedures, and, concerningly, admissions standards.

The school boasts a lengthy DEI policy replete with references to diversity, implicit bias, and so on. The policy appears to have been submitted for the purposes of accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA). However, COCA has since suspended its diversity requirements.

Most disturbing, however, is the school’s admissions and recruitment practices related to DEI.

The DEI policy states that the College endeavors “to interview every applicant who belongs to an underrepresented minority (URM) group who meets minimum admission qualifications.”

This is blatantly discriminatory. Applicants who do not belong to these groups are not automatically granted face time with admissions officials. Not only is this a huge disadvantage to qualified applicants, but otherwise undeserving applicants who merely meet the minimum standards are given an unfair leg up.

This naturally creates an admissions process that punishes merit in favor of ideology and incentivizes admissions officials to promote less-qualified applicants so long as they check certain boxes. Invariably, this will degrade the quality of medical education, to the disservice of future patients.

Additionally, the DEI policy states that the school should “as much as possible, create a diverse hiring committee that includes individuals from underrepresented groups and across various departments.”

Assuming “underrepresented” refers to minorities, this also appears to be an example of textbook discrimination. Moreover, this method for assembling the committee is itself anti-meritocratic, and appears less concerned with promoting the best and brightest applicants and more with adhering to ideology.

Next, the DEI policy states that future employees must embrace DEI ideology wholesale to be sufficiently aligned with DYU-COM’s mission.

The policy reads as follows:

“When assessing whether an applicant is aligned with an inclusive and mission-driven culture, a candidate should:

• Demonstrate a broader understanding of social identity characteristics.
• Demonstrate an appreciation for D’Youville University’s mission and heritage and/or a willingness to delve deeper into it.
• Demonstrate self-awareness of their cultural perspective, identity, biases, power, privilege, etc.
• Demonstrate a willingness to support the mission and the efforts of diversity, inclusion, and equity on campus.
• Integrate mission, equity, inclusion, and diversity concepts into their responses to questions without being prompted.
• Use inclusive language.”

Additionally, the policy requires that when making hiring decisions, school officials ask applicants “one question related to diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as one question related to mission.”

Putting all these pieces of evidence together, it’s clear that racial and ideological preferences will play a significant role in DYU-COM’s admissions and hiring decisions.

For the sake of its future students, DYU-COM should adjust course immediately and excise all divisive, discriminatory practices from its admissions and recruiting strategies. And seeing as COCA suspended its diversity requirements, DYU-COM should no longer feel obligated to promote discrimination.