Commentary

Arizona’s Top Medical Schools Are Going Woke

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • September 29, 2022
  • Arizona State University, University of Arizona College of Medicine

Arizona’s best medical schools are fully bought into the divisive and discriminatory woke agenda. That’s what Do No Harm found after doing a deep dive into the policies and practices at University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The state’s patients – and policymakers – should be very concerned.

Consider what’s happening at the University of Arizona, which operates colleges of medicine in Phoenix and Tucson. The leadership of the latter campus has expressed its commitment to “academic excellence through diversity, equity and inclusion,” even though these concepts have more to do with identity politics than medicine. Similarly, the campus uses “targeted recruitment and retention efforts” to promote diversity, which means discriminating against students and faculty based on their skin color.

The Phoenix campus is even worse. It has a “Statement on Racism” that declares “racism [is] a public health emergency,” which is used to justify spreading discriminatory “anti-racist” ideas. It also has an Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion that offers “Twelve Action Steps Toward Inclusive Excellence.” The list includes mandatory (and deeply insulting) implicit bias training for faculty and students, discriminatory scholarships based on race, and the incorporation of identity politics into the curriculum.

It’s a similar story at Arizona State University’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, as well as its College of Health Solutions. The former “adopted diversity, equity and inclusion as a core value of a five-year strategic plan” last year, while the latter is embedding DEI “as a transformational force in every aspect of our teaching, research, and service.” Translation: Faculty and students alike will be forced to accept politicized topics instead of focusing on providing the best care to individual patients.

Arizona lawmakers should take note of what’s happening at their state’s best medical schools. They should ask – and better yet, investigate – why UA and ASU think divisive and discriminatory ideas are acceptable in medical education. They’re not.

Are you a student at an Arizona medical school and have you seen woke policies? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.