First-year dental students at the University of Buffalo must attend a virtual DEI orientation before arriving on campus. But doctor, I just have a toothache!
The university’s School of Dental Medicine (UBSDM) is “committed to exploring, understanding, and responding to systemic inequities that impact oral health outcomes,” according to its online materials.
As such, UBSDM demands that graduates be “competent in managing a diverse patient population” and have the skills necessary to “function successfully in a multicultural work environment.”
These are not outrageous goals. Working dentists will encounter patients of many different ethnicities, and many dental practices will bring together racially diverse teams.
The problem arises when the practical skill of treating others with respect gives way to the ideological project of what UBSDM calls “equity, diversity and inclusion.”
Put the terms in whatever order you like; DEI remains an extraordinarily politicized framework designed to push a leftist agenda into public and private life.
The evidence is all over UBSDM’s “D1 Orientation to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” page.
As the orientation commences, students “shar[e]” their “pronouns” before “investigat[ing] structural marginalization as a public health problem that impacts all of us.”
They consider “our collective responsibility to build inclusive communities.”
They “construct and recommend policies and practices we can collectively take to strengthen our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.”
Imagine for a moment the situation of a student who has entered dental school with the intention of learning the clinical practice of dentistry and who wishes for none of the ideological indoctrination. Is such a student likely to feel supported when noting that discussions of “structural marginalization” and “collective responsibility” properly belong in philosophy or social‑science classrooms rather than in dental education — that these topics bear no substantive connection to the practical work of improving oral health?
Perhaps such a student would indeed be made to feel the sense of “belonging” that DEI types prize. But we doubt it. At the very least, a student with that belief would likely be swimming against the tide of established opinion.
Consider, for example, the “Selections of Students’ Reflections” with which UBSDM staff have seen fit to adorn their page.
In “Silence is complicit,” a short student poem produced during a previous orientation session, the author describes “[s]ilence that is deafening” and asserts that “[c]hange cannot be brought by silence.”
Another student work, “Roots,” borrows elements of traditional poetic meter to praise DEI:
We all derive from different roots, and It’s
what makes up you and I. We work efficiently
and successfully as a team when we establish
DEI.
Still another, “An Antiracist Dentist,” begins, “I made a commitment to serve the community / not just by ensuring oral health for all / but by understanding true humanity.”
This is bad poetry. Far more importantly, it is a waste of time for tomorrow’s dentists, all of whom need clear, precise, technical training if our children’s teeth are to be cleaned, their cavities filled, and their enamel strengthened.
Doctor, I have a toothache. Is UBSDM producing dentists who can help me?
