The fox shouldn’t guard the henhouse. Athletes ought not to referee their own games. And a DEI official has no place on a medical-school admissions staff.
If only Kaiser Permanente’s Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine (KPSOM) understood that final lesson.
According to the institution’s website, Lindia Willies-Jacobo, MD, currently serves as both senior associate dean for admissions and senior associate dean for inclusive excellence.
That combination should give supporters of merit-based admissions pause.
According to her introduction at a recent event hosted by the National Arab American Medical Association (NAAMA), Dr. Willies-Jacobo’s admissions title is not merely decorative. She actually “oversees the admissions process at KPSOM” (3:19).
Nor are the administrator’s DEI credentials inflated. As the KPSOM website indicates, Dr. Willies-Jacobo was previously assistant dean for diversity and community partnerships and director of the program in medical education-health equity at the UC San Diego School of Medicine for 10 years.
Her stated interests include “healthcare workforce diversity, cultural humility in the practice of medicine, advocacy for underserved populations, and combating health inequities.”
One can easily imagine how these DEI beliefs and admissions-office responsibilities might lead to ethical and legal conflicts in the post–Students for Fair Admissions landscape. To the extent that “healthcare workforce diversity” is the goal, then the admissions process could well become a means by which that target is struck.
This could mean elevating such immutable characteristics as race, gender, or national origin above academic or intellectual merit.
Similarly, if one believes that “health inequities” are prevalent and result from insufficient diversity — and if one is also in charge of a highly competitive medical-school admissions process — then one may be tempted to use the latter to address the former.
As it happens, we do not merely have to imagine these things. Willies-Jacobo discusses them herself in the aforementioned NAAMA video.
According to Willies-Jacobo, KPSOM “now get[s] close to 7,000 applications … for 50 spots” each year (6:00), so it “really is through a mission-aligned lens” that the office judges applicants.
The goal of the admissions team, Willies-Jacobo continues, is to understand the “experiences [applicants have] brought with them throughout [their] journey” (7:18).
Willies-Jacobo and her staff think that admissions success is a matter of “ensuring that [applicants are], in fact, aligned with the mission of the school” (7:25) — a mission that, as expressed in the institution’s formal “Vision,” involves graduates who are “committed to serving a broad range of communities” and are “courageous leaders of change.”
(Additionally, KPSOM’s “values” include “Equity,” promoted by “advancing access, opportunities, and outcomes for members of the KPSOM community.”)
Finally, Willies-Jacobo asserts that KPSOM wants applicants who have “at least begun to think about the concept of advancing equity in health” (7:54).
As the physician-administrator’s own words make plain, her DEI proclivities are clearly seeping into her role leading the KPSOM admissions office.
Indeed, Willies-Jacobo’s reference to “mission align[ment]” should be understood as exactly what it is: a confession that the admissions office is considering applicant criteria that are neither academic nor objective.
The same is obviously true of her reference to applicants’ “experiences” and willingness to “advanc[e] equity in health.” The former is an easy stand-in for race and ethnicity, while the latter is straightforward ideological screening.
To put it another way, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the fox isn’t merely guarding the henhouse in the KPSOM admissions office. She’s in charge of it.
