A frustrating consequence of the backlash against “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) efforts in medicine has been the tendency of DEI officials to veil their efforts. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai provides yet another example of this phenomenon.
Icahn’s DEI work is mostly housed in the Patricia S. Levinson Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs, a unit that works “to foster cultural well-being and belonging for all students” and whose programming “affirm[s] identity” while putting “a special emphasis on the diverse cultures represented at the Icahn School of Medicine.”
The center’s director, Ann-Gel S. Palermo, was previously senior associate dean for diversity, equity & inclusion at Icahn, as well as associate dean for diversity & inclusion in biomedical education, specifically.
Another of the center’s high-ranking administrators, Gary C. Butts, MD, is currently dean emeritus and senior advisor for equity, engagement and institutional strategy and was previously executive vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer for the Mount Sinai Health System and dean for diversity programs, policy and community affairs for the Icahn School of Medicine itself.
These are DEI officials doing DEI work — never mind the center’s anodyne name.
Director Palermo, for example, has “published and presented extensively about culture and inclusivity in medical and biomedical education,” according to her institutional webpage.
Dr. Butts, meanwhile, is a paid DEI speaker represented by All American Entertainment, which boasts of his “efforts to improve racial, ethnic, and gender diversity across the [Icahn] School of Medicine for 15 years.”
Yet even more revealing than the biographies of the center’s personnel are its campus activities. Among the center’s “cultural well-being” goals is its pledge to “[a]mplify the importance of identity development and belonging.”
One specific offering is a “Visiting Electives Program for Students Underserved in Medicine (VEPSUM) Fellowship,” designed to advance the careers of “qualified fourth-year medical students from different backgrounds.”
In partnership with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Manhattan-Staten Island Area Health Education Center, Icahn’s Patricia S. Levinson Center sponsors a “Behavioral Health Undergraduate Social Work Fellowship” for “[e]conomically and/or educationally disadvantaged college student[s].”
Too often, projects such as these represent an affirmative-action workaround, by which zip codes and family income serve as proxies for race and ethnicity. (Further, phrases such as “different backgrounds” will fool no one with even a passing familiarity with DEI protocols and values.)
In almost all cases, initiatives concerned with “identity development and belonging” take students’ attention away from the foundational sciences, clinical skills, and patient-care practices that they need to learn if they are to become effective physicians.
These, ultimately, are the problems with medical-school DEI programs. Divisive rather than unifying, they “divv[y] us up by race,” in the oft-quoted words of Chief Justice John Roberts. Time- and resource-consuming, they detract from the real work of medical education and offer in its place unscientific ideologies.
Add this to the list: Such programs increasingly beget tricksy maneuvering, as officials take steps to disguise their activities.
What’s in a name? Accuracy, honesty, and the enablement of legitimate public oversight of a federally funded educational institution. Those things matter.
