The AAMC is Scrubbing Evidence of Its DEI Infatuation – But It’s Still There

In December 2024, Do No Harm released a comprehensive report exposing the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for injecting DEI into medical education. The report provides an in-depth examination of the AAMC’s DEI policies, advocacy, and agenda, identifying various resources either on the AAMC website or linked to the AAMC that promote “diversity” initiatives.

Following our report, President Trump issued an executive order tackling DEI in the private sector and enforcing compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling that race-based university admissions are illegal.

The executive order explicitly mentions “medical associations” and “institutions of higher education” with endowments over $1 billion, thereby covering many of the most prolific advocates of DEI and racial discrimination in the medical field.

In the months since our report was published, the AAMC has taken steps to remove dozens of the more explicit and overt endorsements of DEI from its website. These include resources on the AAMC’s own DEI programs, such as grant programs and training modules, as well as commitments to diversity in medical school admissions and hiring/recruiting.

However, these steps have largely been cosmetic; many of the AAMC’s DEI resources remain, and webpages are still active for DEI programs, including ones that discriminate on the basis of race. 

Additionally, the AAMC has yet to distance itself from its long history of DEI activism and its promotion of racial discrimination in its public statements.

One example of the AAMC scrubbing or altering resources is the AAMC’s webpage on “Diversity in Medical School Admissions.”

The page, among other things, included links to resources critical of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which found race-conscious admissions to be unconstitutional, as well as various statements expounding on the value of racial diversity in medical admissions.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in medical education and the physician workforce is critical for everyone’s health,” the page stated. “Incorporating DEI programs into medical education is about helping future doctors better understand the specific issues that each patient is facing to provide better medical care.”

That page now redirects to a webpage titled “Equal Opportunity in Medical School Admissions.”

That webpage includes a statement explaining the AAMC’s position regarding compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“A workforce or classroom benefiting from a diversity of experiences and backgrounds continues to be a worthwhile goal, but pursuit of that goal must be fair and free from any unlawful discrimination,” the statement says.

Additionally, the AAMC removed a general resource page dedicated to the AAMC’s various DEI initiatives, statements, and programs.

That page, as evidenced in the screenshots below, included links to recent AAMC activity on the DEI front and new resources regarding equity, diversity, and race. 

The webpage for one of the resources, “Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Initiatives” now redirects to a webpage titled “Initiatives to Cultivate Excellence in Academic Medicine.” 

Several of the “initiatives” included in both lists are effectively the same programs, but in the latter list the more offensive programs have been largely rebranded to remove overt DEI language or removed altogether.

For instance, as mentioned previously, the “Diversity in Medical School Admissions” initiative page is now the “Equal Opportunity in Medical School Admissions” initiative page. Both pages contain a list of resources related to the Supreme Court’s SFFA decision, but resources more overtly related to DEI are absent from the latest version.

As another example, the AAMC’s webpage for its IDEAS education series remains active. IDEAS stands for “Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, [and] Anti-racism” and features presentations and courses intended to advance DEI in medicine. According to a previous version of the IDEAS homepage, “improving inclusion, diversity, equity, and anti-racism is a critical priority for the academic medicine community.” That language is no longer present.

The AAMC’s webpage titled Advancing Gender Equity in Academic Medicine also remains active, and is largely unchanged from previous iterations.

Additionally, the webpage for the AAMC’s anti-racism resources no longer works. The website included a host of links to various articles, both internal and external, on the theory of “anti-racism,” including an article by Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the leading scholars of critical race theory.

“Anti-racism,” according to its most prominent advocate, Ibram X. Kendi, is built on the idea that racial discrimination is essential and even praiseworthy, since it’s supposed to right past wrongs.

An older version of that webpage redirects to a webpage titled “Excellence in Academic Medicine.”

Perhaps most interestingly, the webpage for the AAMC’s definition of “underrepresented in medicine” is no longer live.

“Underrepresented in medicine means those racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population,” the definition read.

Even the AAMC’s news articles haven’t been safe; the AAMC removed an article titled “Do Black patients fare better with Black doctors?” that dealt with the notion that racial concordance, in which patients are treated by physicians of the same race, improves health outcomes.

That article featured prominently a discussion surrounding a now-debunked study that purported to show that black infants enjoy higher survival rates when treated by black doctors.

As Do No Harm covered in a recent report, the study in question spread like wildfire throughout the medical community, despite its findings being invalid.

Additionally, the AAMC has removed reports on its DEI competencies in medical education.

The AAMC’s report, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies Across the Learning Continuum, now redirects to the Excellence in Academic Medicine landing page.

The AAMC has also taken down all ten of the “Action Plan” elements of its “Strategic Plan” that included, among other things, pledges for the AAMC to take steps to increase diversity in medical education and medicine more broadly.

Action Plan item three, “Equip medical schools and teaching hospitals and health systems to become more inclusive, equitable organizations,” is no longer available on the AAMC website.

Similarly, Action Plan item four, “Increase the diversity of medical school applicants and matriculants,” has been removed. 

The item was active as of March 2025.

“By galvanizing the expertise of its member institutions and developing strategic partnerships, this action plan endeavors to make the pathway to the health professions more accessible, equitable, attainable, and desirable for underrepresented populations and historically marginalized communities,” the item read. “The AAMC is uniquely positioned to drive this initiative because of its robust repository of aspirant applicant and enrollment data, extensive analysis of trends in the physician workforce, relationships with experts in higher education, health care, and policy, and proven success with facilitating critical and crucial conversations.”

“Continue working with subject matter experts from our member institutions to identify and build out systems-based resources to implement holistic review with fidelity, to discuss impact of SCOTUS decisions, and to support and graduate a diverse cohort in an equitable manner,” one vow from the now-defunct page read.

Yet while these overt endorsements of DEI may be removed, many of the AAMC’s DEI initiatives remain. 

For instance, the AAMC’s Action Collaborative for Black Men in Medicine, which is explicitly designed to “increase the representation of Black men in medicine,” remains active.

Additionally, the AAMC’s “Medical Minority Applicant Registry” is also still accessible on the organization’s website.

This tool is explicitly designed to get students from “historically underrepresented” into medical school; the eligibility criteria state that students must either be “economically disadvantaged” or members of underrepresented racial groups such as “African-American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.”

“If you choose to participate in Med-MAR, your basic biographical information and your MCAT® scores will be distributed to the minority affairs and admission offices of AAMC-member schools and to select health-related agencies whose mission is to increase opportunities for students historically underrepresented in medicine,” the description of the tool reads.

While the AAMC removed the Action Plan item that created its Center for Health Justice, led by Dr. Philip Alberti, the center itself appears to still be operational. 

Dr. Alberti made several incendiary comments on a recent podcast, such as blaming problems with American healthcare on “isms” like “cisgenderism.” Additionally, the Center for Health Justice put out a language guided titled “Advancing Health Equity” intended to instruct healthcare professionals on the correct nomenclature to use to advance DEI ideals.

Additionally, the AAMC has left up its webpage an article titled “6 common myths about diversity in medical education.” The resource is a full-throated defense of DEI in medical education and uses misleading arguments to advance the DEI agenda.
Do No Harm debunked the AAMC’s reasoning in a blog post last year.